Routing user communications to agents

ABSTRACT

A call handling platform receives a call placed by a caller to a calling number. The call handling platform computes an experience score for the caller using measurements of a subset of data points based on an interaction of the caller with an interactive voice response (IVR) module during the call. The experience score reflects a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the caller in interacting with the IVR module. The call handling platform compares the experience score to a predetermined threshold that indicates a minimum level of caller satisfaction, and determines that the experience score indicates that the caller has a lower level of satisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction. Conditioned on this determination, the call handling platform routes the call to a human agent at a call center, along with enabling the agent to perceive a representation of the experience score.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/051,937, filed on Oct. 11, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,148,512, thecontent of which is incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates to routing user communications to human agents.

BACKGROUND

A user may use a personal communications device to contact a company todiscuss a service or a product provided by the company. The user maycontact the company by establishing electronic communications with thecompany through use of one or more of multiple different communicationsmodes (e.g., phone, email, web chat, or Short Message Service (SMS) thatsupport communications).

SUMMARY

In a general aspect, a call handling platform receives a first call thatis placed by a first caller to a first calling number. The call handlingplatform measures a first subset of data points based on an interactionof the first caller with an interactive voice response (IVR) moduleduring the first call, wherein the IVR module is associated with thecall handling platform. The call handling platform computes anexperience score for the first caller using measurements of the firstsubset of data points. The experience score reflects a numerical measureof a level of satisfaction of the first caller in interacting with theIVR module during the first call. The call handling platform accesses apredetermined first threshold that indicates a minimum level of callersatisfaction and compares the experience score to the first threshold.Based on the comparing, the call handling platform determines that theexperience score for the first caller indicates that the first callerhas a lower level of satisfaction than the minimum level ofsatisfaction. Conditioned on determining that the first caller has alower level of satisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction, thecall handling platform routes the first call to a first human agent at afirst call center. The call handling platform enables the first humanagent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the firstcaller prior to or during a handling of the first call by the firsthuman agent.

Particular implementations may include one or more of the followingfeatures. A first customer of the call handling platform that isassociated with the first calling number may be enabled to select thefirst subset of data points from a group of data points available at thecall handling platform. The first customer may be enabled to configurevalues for the first subset of data points. Enabling the first customerto configure the values for the first subset of data points may includeenabling the first customer to use an Internet-based browser userinterface associated with the call handling platform to configure thevalues for the first subset of data points.

The first subset of data points may be selected from the groupconsisting of: a number of no inputs by a caller placing a call to thecall handling platform, wherein each no input corresponds to an instanceof failure of the caller to respond to a query by the call handlingplatform, a number of no matches by a caller placing a call to the callhandling platform, wherein each no match corresponds to an instance ofthe caller providing a response to a query by the call handling platformthat does not match a pre-determined response expected by the callhandling platform, a number of tasks not completed by a caller placing acall to the call handling platform, wherein each task not completedindicates an instance of the caller failing to complete successfully atask that has been requested by the call handling platform, a number ofzero actions by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform,wherein each zero action corresponds to an instance of the callerproviding a preconfigured input indicating an attempt to connect to ahuman agent irrespective of a query by the call handling platform, atime to zero out by a caller placing a call to the call handlingplatform, wherein the time to zero out indicates how quickly the callerattempts to talk to a human agent after the call is connected, and await time of a caller placing a call to the call handling platform,wherein the wait time of the caller indicates how long the caller has towait before being connected to a human agent.

Measuring the first subset of data points may include analyzing, using aspeech analysis module associated with the call handling platform, voicespeech made by the first caller during the first call. The call handlingplatform may compute the experience score for the first caller based onanalysis of the voice speech made by the first caller, wherein theexperience score for the first caller that is computed based on theanalysis of the voice speech made by the first caller provides anumerical measure indicating an emotional state of the first callerduring the first call.

Analyzing the voice speech made by the first caller during the firstcall may include detecting, by the speech analysis module, one or morepredetermined keywords in the voice speech made by the first caller. Theone or more predetermined keywords may be configured by a first customerof the call handling platform that is associated with the first callingnumber.

Measuring the first subset of data points may include determining, bythe call handling platform, demographic information associated with thefirst caller. Measuring the first subset of data points may include thecall handling platform accessing historical data corresponding to anindustry associated with the first calling number. Computing theexperience score for the first caller may comprise computing theexperience score for the first caller using at least one of thedemographic information and the historical data.

A first customer of the call handling platform that is associated withthe first calling number may be enabled to set a numerical value as thefirst threshold. The first human agent may be enabled to perceive arepresentation of the experience score for the first caller comprisesspeaking, by the call handling platform, the representation of theexperience score for the first caller to the first human agent whilerouting the first call to the first human agent.

The call handling platform may receive a second call placed by a secondcaller to a second calling number, the second calling number and thefirst calling number being different numbers. The call handling platformmay measure a second subset of data points based on an interaction ofthe second caller with the IVR module during the second call. The callhandling platform may compute an experience score for the second callerusing measurements of the second subset data points, wherein theexperience score for the second caller reflects a numerical measure of alevel of satisfaction of the second caller in interacting with the IVRmodule during the second call. A predetermined second threshold that isdifferent from the first threshold and that indicates a differentminimum level of caller satisfaction may be accessed. The experiencescore for the second caller may be compared to the second threshold. Thecall handling platform may determine, based on the comparing, that theexperience score for the second caller indicates that the second callerhas a lower level of satisfaction than the different minimum level ofsatisfaction. Conditioned on determining that the second caller has alower level of satisfaction than the different minimum level ofsatisfaction, the second call may be routed to a second human agent at asecond call center. The call handling platform may enable the secondhuman agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for thesecond caller prior to or during a handling of the second call by thesecond human agent.

In another general aspect, a call handling platform receives a firstcall placed by a first caller to a first calling number. The callhandling platform measures a first subset of data points based on aninteraction of the first caller with an interactive voice response (IVR)module during the first call. The IVR module is associated with the callhandling platform. The first subset of the data points with associatedvalues are stored in a non-transitory data storage medium in associationwith the first calling number. The call handling platform computes anexperience score for the first caller using measurements of the firstsubset of data points. The experience score provides a numerical measureof a level of satisfaction of the first caller in interacting with theIVR module during the first call. The call handling platform accesses apredetermined first threshold that indicates a minimum level of callersatisfaction. The call handling platform compares the experience scoreof the first caller to the first threshold. The call handling platformdetermines, based on the comparing, that the experience score for thefirst caller indicates that the first caller has a lower level ofsatisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction. Conditioned ondetermining that the first caller has a lower level of satisfaction thanthe minimum level of satisfaction, the call handling platform routes thefirst call to a first human agent at a first call center, along withproviding the experience score of the first caller to the first humanagent.

The call handling platform receives a second call placed by a secondcaller to a second calling number. The second calling number and thefirst calling number are different numbers. The call handling platformmeasures a second subset of data points based on an interaction of thesecond caller with the IVR module during the second call. The callhandling platform computes an experience score for the second callerusing measurements of the second subset data points. The experiencescore for the second caller provides a numerical measure of a level ofsatisfaction of the second caller in interacting with the IVR moduleduring the second call. The second subset of the data points withassociated values are stored in the non-transitory data storage mediumin association with the second calling number. The call handlingplatform accesses a predetermined second threshold that is differentfrom the first threshold and that indicates a minimum level of callersatisfaction. The call handling platform compares the experience scoreof the second caller to the second threshold. The call handling platformdetermines that the experience score for the second caller is below apredetermined second threshold. Conditioned on determining that theexperience score for the second caller is below a predetermined secondthreshold, the call handling platform routes the second call to a secondhuman agent at a second call center. The call handling platform alsoprovides the experience score for the second caller to the second humanagent.

Implementations of the above techniques include methods, systems andcomputer program products. One such system comprises a call handlingplatform that includes a first processor and first instructions storedin a machine-readable medium that, when executed by the first processor,are operable to perform one or more of the above described actions. Thesystem also comprises an IVR module, which includes second instructionsstored in a machine-readable storage medium that, when executed by asecond processor, are configured to cause the second processor toperform one or more of the above described actions.

One such computer program product is suitably embodied in anon-transitory machine-readable medium and includes instructionsexecutable by one or more processors. The instructions are configured tocause the one or more processors to perform the above described actions.

The details of one or more disclosed implementations are set forth inthe accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features,aspects, and advantages will become apparent from the description, thedrawings and the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communications system that enablesrouting user communications to human agents.

FIGS. 2A-2H illustrate an example GUI for an application builder toolthat is used by a content provider to create an interaction site for acommunications system that enables routing user communications to humanagents.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example GUI that is shown to a human agent whencustomer communications are routed to the agent.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process implementedby a communications system for routing a customer's communications basedon the customer's satisfaction level.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process implementedby a communications system for matching a customer's communications to ahuman agent who is most suitable for handling the customer'scommunications.

FIG. 6 illustrate flow charts showing examples of processes implementedby a communications system for selecting a human agent for routing usercommunications based on different agent selection options.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A company (e.g., a service provider or a product provider) may wish toenable its customers to contact it through use of any of multipledifferent communications modes (e.g., phone, email, web chat, SMS oranother communications mode that supports communications between acustomer and a service or product provider). During a communicationsession with a customer, the company may wish to interact withcustomers, at least initially, using an automated response system. Insome implementations, use of such an automated response system maydecrease the costs associated with responding to customer contacts bydecreasing the number of human agents that need to be employed torespond to the customer contacts. This may be the case, for example,when the customer contacts are for routine inquiries (e.g., a customercontacts the company to check the balance of a checking account or of acredit card) and, therefore, lend themselves well to being efficientlyand cost-effectively handled through use of an automated responsesystem.

Each of the multiple different communications modes may offer a similarinteractive experience to customers. For example, a customer mayinteract with the company by any one of phone, email, text messaging,and chat/instant messaging through a web browser (also referred to asweb chat) to check his bank account balance or his credit card balance.The interaction flow for these multiple different communications modes,therefore, may share many common states and characteristics.

Situations may arise where interaction with a customer using anautomated response system is not sufficient, and the communicationsession with the customer therefore may be routed to human agents forhandling. This may be the case, for example, for more complex customercontacts, such as when a customer contacts customer service for thecompany to troubleshoot a problem the customer is experiencing in usingthe product or service. The automated response system may not have theresources to provide a solution to the customer's problem, and,therefore, the customer communication may get routed to a human agentwith expertise in solving such problems. As another example, a customermay have difficulty navigating the options provided by the automatedresponse system and, therefore, may wish to talk to a human agent.Conversely, in some cases, the automated response system may notunderstand the customer input (e.g., due to erroneous option selectionsby the customer during the interaction or due to an inability tounderstand the customer's accent during a speech-based interaction).

Given the above, it may be useful to provide such companies with theability to design, and develop a single interaction site that enablescustomers to interact with the company in an automated fashion via anyone of multiple different communications modes, and provides a mechanismto route the customer communication to a human agent when automatedinteraction is insufficient to address the customer's issues. Themechanism may implement features that analyze the customer interactionwith the automated response system and determine threshold points atwhich the customer communication should be routed from the automatedresponse system to human agents. The mechanism also may implementfeatures that match a particular customer's communications to specifichuman agents based on one or more parameters, such as, for example, atype of the communications, an analysis of the customer's state of mind,a history of the customer's past interactions with different humanagents, and experience levels of the human agents, among others.

For ease of exposition, the following description begins by describing avoice communications mode involving a voice site, which is configured toreceive and respond to telephonic contacts, and then expands thedescription to cover an interaction site that supports contacts over anyone of multiple different communications modes (e.g., email contacts,web chat contacts, and SMS contacts). In a voice communications mode, acustomer may call a known customer service number for a product orservice. By calling the customer service number, the customer may getconnected to a call handling system that enables the customer tointeract with a voice site associated with the product or service.

A voice site is a set of scripts or, more generally, programminglanguage modules corresponding to one or more linked pages thatcollectively intemperate to produce an automated interactive experiencewith a user. A standard voice site includes scripts or programminglanguage modules corresponding to at least one voice page and limits theinteraction with the user to an audio communications mode. Becausecustomers typically access a voice site by calling a telephone numberusing a voice communications device such as a telephone, a standardvoice site is typically referred to as a single mode interaction site,i.e., an interaction site that supports a single type of contact. Anenhanced voice site may include scripts or programming language modulescorresponding to at least one voice page and at least one multimodalaction page linked to the at least one voice page that enableinteraction with the user to occur via an audio communications mode andat least one additional communications mode (e.g., a text communicationsmode, an image communications mode or a video communications mode). Anenhanced voice site, therefore, may be referred to as a single modeinteraction site that has been enhanced to enable some portions of theinteraction flow to involve the communication of multimedia information.Notably, a call may said to be directed to a voice site if it isdirected to a telephone number that has been defined as corresponding tothe voice site.

The voice site called by the customer may be an automated interactivevoice site that is configured to process, using pre-programmed scripts,information received from the customer that is input through the voicecommunications device being used by the user, and, in response, provideinformation to the user that is conveyed to the user through the voicecommunications device. The interaction between the customer and thevoice site may be done using an interactive voice response system (IVR)that is included in a contact handling platform (also referred to as acontact handling system) that is hosting the voice site. The contacthandling platform is said to be “hosting” the voice site in that itreceives and processes the various programming language modulescorresponding to the voice site in order to perform the functionality ofthe voice site. In some implementations, the contact handling platformalso may be referred to as a call handling platform, for example, whenthe contact handling platform is configured to handle primarily voicecommunications, even though the platform may support othercommunications modes. The contact handling platform may be provided by athird party service provider, which is referred to as a contact handlingplatform provider (or simply as a platform provider) in this context.

The IVR is configured to support voice commands and voice informationusing text-to-speech processing and natural language processing by usingscripts that are pre-programmed for the voice site, for example,voice-extensible markup language (VoiceXML) scripts. The IVR interactswith the customer by using audible commands to prompt the customer toprovide information and enabling the customer to input the informationby speaking into the voice communications device or by pressing buttonson the voice communications device (when using, for example, atouch-tone telephone). The information input by the customer is conveyedto the IVR over a voice communications session that is establishedbetween the voice communications device and the IVR when the call isconnected. Upon receiving the information, the IVR processes theinformation using the pre-programmed scripts. The IVR may be configuredto send audible responses back to the customer via the voicecommunications device.

In some implementations, the voice site may be an enhanced voice sitethat is configured to support multimedia information including audio,video, images and text. In these implementations, the IVR of the contacthandling platform is a multimodal IVR that is configured to support theexchange of multi-media information under the direction of theprogramming language modules of the enhanced voice site. An example ofsuch a multimodal IVR is described in U.S. application Ser. No.13/092,090, which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.The voice communications device also may be an advanced telephonicdevice (e.g., a smart phone) provided with a display for conveyingvisual information to the customer, and a processor capable ofperforming complex tasks such as logic processing wherein the associatedinstructions may be stored in memory included in the voicecommunications device. In such circumstances, the advanced voicecommunications device and the contact handling platform hosting theenhanced voice site can interact using one or more of voice, video,images or text information and commands.

In some implementations, the voice site may be configured to enable thecontact handling platform to compute one or more metrics based on theinteraction between a customer and the IVR of the contact handlingplatform when a communication from the customer is received by the IVR.The metrics may be based on various parameters that may be tailored tothe voice site by the designer of the voice site. Based on the computedmetrics, the contact handling platform hosting the voice site maydetermine whether to continue interacting with the customer using theIVR, or whether to route the call to a human agent, who may be availableat a contact center that is connected to the contact handling platform.For example, the voice site may compare the measured metrics to one ormore pre-configured threshold values. If the values of the metrics arebelow the threshold values, the contact handling platform hosting thevoice site may route the customer communication to a human agent. On theother hand, if the values of the metrics are above the threshold values,then the interaction with the customer may be continued using the IVR.

In some implementations, multiple human agents may be available tohandle communications from customers that are routed by the contacthandling platform to the human agents. For example, several contactcenters may be connected to the contact handling platform hosting thevoice site, and several agents may be in each contact center. In suchimplementations, when the contact handling platform hosting the voicesite determines to route a customer communication to a human agent, thecontact handling platform may perform additional processing inaccordance with parameters set for the voice site to select a humanagent most suited to handle the particular customer communication. Forexample, the contact handling platform may execute one or more matchingalgorithms that consider agent experience levels (represented, forexample, using numerical scores), past history of interactions betweenthe particular customer and different available agents, specific agentskills in handling different types of calls (e.g., an agent may havemore expertise in handling sales calls while another agent may be adeptat handling technical support calls), among other factors.

As noted previously, a customer typically accesses a voice site bycalling a telephone number using a voice communications device, such asa telephone. A voice site, therefore, is a single-mode interaction sitein that it enables the contact handling platform to receive and respondto customer contacts that are voice calls. In contrast, a multi-modalinteraction site enables the contact handling platform to receive andinitiate responses to customer contacts in an automated fashion via anyone of multiple different communications modes supported by the contacthandling platform. For example, a multi-modal interaction site mayreceive and respond to customer contacts that are voice calls, emailmessages, SMS messages, web chat messages, or any suitable combinationof the above.

A multi-modal interaction site may be a set of scripts or programmingmodules that offer a common interaction flow for handling customercontacts received in different communications modes. The set of scriptsor programming modules may then be translated by an interaction flowprocessor of the contact handling platform into a corresponding set ofmode-specific scripts or programming modules for each communicationsmode supported by the interaction site, and these translatedmode-specific scripts or programming modules may then be executed by therespective sub-systems of the contact handling platform to enableautomated interactions with customers over the different modes. Forexample, the pre-programmed scripts of the interaction site may beextensible markup language (XML) scripts. If the customer contacts thecontact handling platform by using a telephone to call a telephonenumber associated with the interaction site, the interaction flowprocessor of the contact handling platform may translate the XML scriptsof the interaction site to VoiceXML scripts for processing by an IVR tointeract with the calling customer. Implementation examples of contacthandling platforms able to host multi-modal interaction sites aredescribed in U.S. application Ser. No. 14/032,443, which is incorporatedherein by reference for all purposes.

Irrespective of the mode being used for a customer communication, themulti-modal interaction site may implement features to measure variousmetrics about the automated interaction with the customer, and determinewhether to route the communication to a human agent based on themeasured metrics. In some implementations, a human agent to whom acommunication is routed may be selected from the same pool of humanagents available for supporting disparate communications modes. Forexample, the same human agent may be selected to handle a voice call atone time, respond to an email message from another customer, or chatwith a third customer using a web-based chat session. However, in someother implementations, different human agents may be used for supportingdisparate communications modes.

The platform provider facilitates the creation and hosting ofinteraction sites on servers owned and operated by it. The platformprovider may provide software or hardware, or both as a means to enablethe design and development of an interaction site and to enable thehosting of the interaction site by the contact handling platform. Thecontact handling platform also may be connected to or may otherwise bein communication with one or more contact centers where human agents arepresent. The software and/or hardware means also may enablecommunications/connections between the contact handling platform and thecontact centers, such that a customer communication received by theinteraction site may be seamlessly routed to a human agent at a contactcenter.

The software and/or hardware means also may enable the design anddevelopment of applications that run a thin client on the communicationsdevice used by the customer. The thin client allows a communicationsinteraction between the customer's communications device and aninteraction site hosted by the contact handling platform using any oneof the communications modes supported by the interaction site.

In the above scenario, the role of the entity (e.g., the company)providing customer service through the interaction site is that of acontent provider. The developer of the entity or company (hereinafterreferred to interchangeably as the “content provider”) configures theinteraction site that is to be used for the particular product orservice and provides the logic for the interaction site that is to beexecuted by the contact handling platform. As part of configuring theinteraction site, the content provider may select various parameters forwhich metrics will be computed during an interaction with a customer.The content provider also may specify threshold values for the metricsthat may be used to trigger routing a communication to a human agent.

The content provider may configure the interaction site by using agraphical user interface (GUI) provided by the platform provider forconfiguring the interaction site. The platform provider handles theinterpretation and compilation of the information provided by thecontent provider, and the creation and hosting of the interaction sitebased on the information. Since the platform provider manages thecontact handling platform, the platform provider may enable the contentprovider to design an interaction site that supports communications withcustomers over any one of multiple different communications modes usinga single, unified GUI.

The software or hardware means provided by the platform provider thusenable the deployment of interaction-enabled solutions on communicationsdevices without requiring the content provider to engage in complexprogramming. Applications, or interaction sites, may be designed by thecontent provider using a web-based or some other remotely-accessibleinterface, and served on demand to client applications. In someimplementations, the client applications can be add-ons that othersmartphone applications can plug into. In some implementations, thesoftware or hardware means enable customers to interact with amulti-modal application. The application is referred to as multi-modalin that it enables an application user (i.e., a customer of the contentprovider) to contact and interact with the contact handling platform viaany of multiple different communications modes (e.g., phone, email,chat, Short Message Service (SMS), or another communications mode thatsupport communications between the user and the interaction site). Forexample, the user may contact the contact handling platform by phone,provide information to the multi-modal platform by speaking, and receiveinformation from the contact handling platform by hearing.Alternatively, the user may contact the contact handling platform byemail (or SMS or web chat), and provide the same information to thecontact handling platform by typing text and receive the sameinformation from the contact handling platform by reading text.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communications system 100 that enablesrouting user communications to human agents. The communications system100 allows a content provider to configure an interaction site that isoperable to handle communications from customers of the content providerusing an automated response system, while routing some of thecommunications to human agents.

The communications system 100 is a multi-modal communications system,i.e., it enables a user to communicate with an interaction site usingdifferent modes of communication. Regardless of which mode ofcommunication is used, the communications system 100 facilitates therouting of an established communications session from an automatedresponse system to a human agent as needed.

A customer using a communications device 110 (e.g., a smartphone) isable to interact with the communications device 110 to requestcommunication with an interaction site that is provided, for example, bya content provider. The communication may be, for example, to purchase aparticular product or request a service offered by or made available bythe content provider through the interaction site. For example, the usermay indicate a desire to communicate with the interaction site byselecting a graphically displayed icon on a graphical user interface(GUI) of the communications device 110 to thereby invoke an applicationstored in the communications device 110 with which the user can interactto initiate a service request. Additionally or alternatively, the usermay indicate a desire to communicate by inputting, via manual selectionor otherwise, a telephone number associated with a customer servicedepartment of the content provider into the communications device 110and initiating a call directed to the inputted telephone number.Additionally or alternatively, the user may indicate a desire tocommunicate by inputting and sending, via manual selection or otherwise,a SMS message that includes a short code and a keyword associated withthe customer service department into the communications device 110.Additionally or alternatively, the user may indicate a desire tocommunicate by inputting, via manual selection or otherwise, a uniformresource locator (URL) associated with the customer service departmentinto the communications device 110 to initiate a web chat session withthe customer service department. Additionally or alternatively, the usermay indicate a desire to communicate by inputting and sending, viamanual selection or otherwise, an email that includes an email addressassociated with the customer service department into the communicationsdevice 110. Additionally or alternatively, the user may indicate adesire to communicate via a communications mode not listed in the aboveexamples.

In some implementations, the communications request may be handled by acontact handling platform that hosts the interaction site for thecontent provider, and communicates with the communications device 110 toprovide the requested service. As mentioned previously, an interactionsite may be hosted by a third party platform provider that facilitatesthe creation and hosting of interaction sites on servers owned andoperated by the platform provider. Depending on the communications meansthat a customer uses to access an interaction site, a correspondinghandling system included in the contact handling platform may be used toprocess the request. Each handling system may present the interactionsite to the customer in a different manner. For example, a call handlingsystem may present the interaction site to the customer using voicemessages that are generated by VoiceXML scripts. On the other hand, anSMS handling system may present the interaction site to the customerusing SMS messages that are generated by XML scripts.

However, in many applications, the flow for providing a service to thecustomer includes the same or similar steps regardless of whichcommunications mode the customer is using. In any of the communicationsmodes being used, the contact handling platform may compute metricsbased on the interaction of the customer with the corresponding handlingsystem being used. Depending on whether the computed metrics are aboveor below pre-configured thresholds, the contact handling platform mayroute the communications session from the handling system to a humanagent for a live person-to-person interaction between the customer andthe human agent.

From a content provider's perspective, developing an interaction sitefor each of the communications modes using different tools or scriptinglanguages can be burdensome. From a platform provider's perspective, thestorage and management of an interaction site having different versionsfor each of the communications modes may be complicated. Accordingly, acommunications system that can integrate the development of aninteraction site for each of the communications modes using onedevelopment platform, and compile the developed interaction site intoone scripting language that can be translated based on thecommunications mode used by a customer may enable a content providerand/or a platform provider to enjoy a decrease in costs associated withdeveloping and managing interaction sites without compromising thequality of the user experience with the interaction site.

The communications system 100 includes a communications device 110 thatconnects, through a network 120, to a contact handling platform 130. Thecontact handling platform 130 is directly connected to a contact center140. The contact handling platform 130 is also connected, over a network160, to contact center 150. The communications system 100 also includesan application builder 170, which comprises a content provider interface172 and an application compiler 174.

The communications device 110 is configured to allow a customer tointeract with an interaction site hosted by the contact handlingplatform 130 over the network 120. The communications device 110 may bea voice communications device, such as a telephone, a cellular phone ora satellite phone. The communications device 110 alternatively may be anelectronic tablet, electronic book reader, a personal digital assistant(PDA), a portable music player, or a computer, which includes one ormore software or hardware applications for performing communicationsbetween the communications device 110 and the contact handling platform130. The communications device 110 may have various input/output deviceswith which a user may interact to provide and receive audio, text,video, and other forms of data.

The network 120 is configured to allow connections between thecommunications device 110 and an interaction site hosted by the contacthandling platform 130. In some implementations, the network 120 is alsoconfigured to allow connections between the application builder 170 andthe contact handling platform 130. The network 120 may include acircuit-switched voice or data network, a packet-switched voice or datanetwork, or any other network able to carry voice and/or data, forexample, Internet Protocol (IP)-based or asynchronous transfer mode(ATM)-based networks, including wired or wireless networks. The network120 may be configured to handle voice traffic, for example, Voice overIP (VOIP) network. The network 120 also may be configured to handle webtraffic such as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) traffic and hypertextmarkup language (HTML) traffic. The network 120 may include theInternet, Wide Area Networks (WANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), analogor digital wired and wireless networks (e.g., IEEE 802.11 networks,Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), Integrated Services DigitalNetwork (ISDN), and Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL)), Third Generation(3G) or Fourth Generation (4G) mobile telecommunications networks, awired Ethernet network, a private network such as an intranet, radio,television, cable, satellite, and/or any other delivery or tunnelingmechanism for carrying data, or any appropriate combination of suchnetworks.

A contact handling platform 130 receives a communications request fromthe communications device 110 that is directed to an interaction sitehosted by the contact handling platform 130, and interacts with thecommunications device 110 to provide the requested service through theinteraction site. The contact handling platform 130 includes severalmodules, such as the Automated Response System (ARS) 132, speech/textanalytics module 134, agent routing module 136, and a data store 138,which stores scripts or, more generally, programming language modules139 corresponding to interaction sites hosted by the contact handlingplatform 130.

The ARS 132 is configured to process the communications request from thecommunications device 110 and interact with the communications device110 using an automated response system. The ARS 132 may include one ormore processors and instructions stored in machine-readable media thatare executed by the processors to perform various operations. In someimplementations, the machine-readable media may include non-transitorystorage media, such as hard disks and hardware memory modules.

In some implementations, the ARS 132 includes an interactive voiceresponse (IVR) system that handles a call from the communications device110 when the communications device 110 is operating in a voicecommunications mode. In such implementations, the IVR may include avoice gateway that receives user calls from or places calls to voicecommunications devices, such as the communications device 110, andresponds to the calls in accordance with a voice program thatcorresponds to a flow of an interaction site. The voice program may beaccessed from local memory within the voice gateway or from otherstorage media in the contact handling platform 130. In someimplementations, the voice gateway processes voice programs that arescript-based voice applications. The voice program, therefore, may be ascript written in a scripting language, such as voice extensible markuplanguage (VoiceXML) or speech application language tags (SALT). The IVRalso may be configured to communicate with the data store 138 to readand/or write user interaction data (e.g., state variables for a datacommunications session) in a shared memory space.

In some implementations, the IVR includes a voice application server andcomputer systems that interface and provide data to the voiceapplication server. The IVR may process voice application programs orscripts for communicating with the communications device 110. Userresponses received by the IVR may be analyzed and new programs orscripts that correspond to the user responses may then be processed.

In some implementations, the IVR may initiate an outbound call to thecommunications device 110. When the outbound call is established, theIVR may interact with the call recipient using the voice program.

In some implementations, the ARS 132 comprises an SMS handling systemthat is configured to handle a request to interact with an interactionsite using an SMS mode. The SMS handling system may include an SMSgateway that receives user SMS messages from, or sends SMS messages to,communications devices, such as the communications device 110, andresponds to the SMS messages in accordance with an SMS program thatcorresponds to a flow of an interaction site. The SMS program may beaccessed from local memory within the SMS gateway or from other storagemedia in the contact handling platform 130. In some implementations, theSMS gateway processes voice programs that are script-based SMSapplications. The SMS program, therefore, may be a script written in ascripting language such as, for example, extensible markup language(XML). The SMS handling system also may be configured to communicatewith the data store 138 to read and/or write user interaction data(e.g., state variables for a data communications session) in a sharedmemory space.

In some implementations, the ARS 132 comprises an email handling systemthat is configured to handle a request to interact with an interactionsite using an email communications mode. The email handling system 172may include an email gateway that interfaces with the network 120. Theemail gateway is a gateway that receives user emails from or sendsemails to communications devices, such as the communications device 110,and responds to the emails in accordance with an email program thatcorresponds to a flow of an interaction site. The email program may beaccessed from local memory within the email gateway or from otherstorage media in the contact handling platform 130. In someimplementations, the email gateway processes email programs that arescript-based email applications. The email program, therefore, may be ascript written in a scripting language such as, for example, extensiblemarkup language (XML). The email handling system 172 may also beconfigured to communicate with the data store 138 to read and/or writeuser interaction data (e.g., state variables for a data communicationssession) in a shared memory space.

In some implementations, the ARS 132 comprises a chat handling systemthat is configured to handle a request to interact with an interactionsite using a chat channel. The chat handling system may include a chatgateway that interfaces with the network 120. The chat gateway is agateway that receives user chat messages from communications devices,such as the communications device 110, and delivers chat messages inresponse to the received user chat messages in accordance with a chatprogram that corresponds to a flow of an interaction site. The chatprogram may be accessed from local memory within the chat gateway orfrom the other storage media in the contact handling platform 130. Insome implementations, the chat gateway processes chat programs that arescript-based chat applications. The chat program, therefore, may be ascript written in a scripting language such as, for example, extensiblemarkup language (XML). The chat handling system also may be configuredto communicate with the data store 138 to read and/or write userinteraction data (e.g., state variables for a data communicationssession) in a shared memory space.

The speech/text analytics module (STAM) 134 is configured to performspeech, or text, or both, recognition and grammar matching for thecustomer communications that are handled by the contact handlingplatform 130. The SIAM 134 may include one or more processors andinstructions stored in machine-readable media that are executed by theprocessors to perform various operations. In some implementations, themachine-readable media may include non-transitory storage media, such ashard disks and hardware memory modules.

In some implementations, the communications data (e.g., voice data, SMStext, web chat text, email text or any suitable combination of theabove) that is received as part of a customer communications handled bythe ARS 132 is forwarded to the SIAM 134. The communications data maybe, for example, answers by the call recipient to questions that arepresented by the ARS 132 based on the pre-programmed scripts or, moregenerally, the programming language modules implementing the interactionsite. Alternatively or additionally, the communications data may bevoice speech that is spoken by the customer, or a human agent, or both,after a customer has been routed to a human agent and the communicationssession proceeds based on voice interaction between the customer and thehuman agent.

The STAM 134 may have access to grammars for all possible answers foreach question that might be presented by the ARS 132. The SIAM 134 alsomay have access to grammars for various topics or phrases that areconfigured by the content provider while generating the interactionsite. These topics or phrases correspond to topics or phrases thatcustomers of the content provider are likely to query. For example, thecontent provider may be a mortgage company that configures a phrase tobe “Can I reduce my mortgage rate?” or “Can I reduce my rate?” Thephrase may be detected as spoken words, or as written text.

In addition, the STAM 134 may have access to grammars for common wordsor phrases that are likely to be uttered by a customer whilecommunicating with a generic interaction site. These words or phrasesmay be made available by the platform provider to the content providersas a convenience to thereby allow the content providers to easilyincorporate recognition of these common words or phrases into thefunctionality of their interaction sites. For example, such a topic orphrase may be “I want to talk to an agent” or “I need help,” which aretopics or phrases that are typically universally applicable to allcontent providers.

The grammars may be stored in the data store 138, or in memory local toSIAM 134, or in other machine-readable media coupled to the contacthandling platform 130. The grammars also may be dynamically generated.

The STAM 134 analyzes the communications data received from thecommunications device 110 during interaction between the customer andthe ARS 132 and/or during interaction between the customer and a humanagent. The SIAM 134 attempts to match the communications data to thegrammar that is known to it, or to grammar that is dynamicallygenerated, or to a suitable combination of both. The SIAM 134 sendsgrammar matches for the communications data to the Agent Routing Module(ARM) 136 with a confidence interval. The confidence interval mayindicate an extent of match between the communications data and theparticular grammar.

The ARM 136 is configured to process customer response data duringcustomer communications that are handled by the contact handlingplatform 130. The ARM 136 is configured to determine, based onprocessing the customer response data, whether to route a communicationssession to a human agent. In some implementations, the ARM 136 is alsoconfigured to track agent performance metrics during interactions withcustomers. In addition, the ARM 136 may be configured to execute agentmatching algorithms to route a customer communications session to ahuman agent most suitable for handling the communications session.

The ARM 136 may include one or more processors and instructions storedin machine-readable media that are executed by the processors to performvarious operations. In some implementations, the machine-readable mediamay include non-transitory storage media, such as hard disks andhardware memory modules.

In some implementations, the ARS 132 forwards to the ARM 136 thecustomer data (e.g., information corresponding to button presses on thecommunications device 110) that is received during interaction betweenthe customer and the automated response system. The customer data maybe, for example, answers by the call recipient to questions that arepresented by the automated response system based on the pre-programmedscripts or, more generally, programming language modules implementingthe interaction site. Alternatively or additionally, the STAM 134forwards results of grammar matches corresponding to vocal or textualdata generated by the customer, or a human agent, or both, during acustomer communications session involving the customer and one or moreof the ARS 132 and an agent in contact center 140 or contact center 150.The grammar matches may each include an identity of the grammar that wasmatched along with a confidence level indicating an extent of the matchbetween the communications data and the corresponding identifiedgrammar.

Based on the customer data received from the ARS 132, or the grammarmatches received from the SIAM 134, or both, the ARM 136 computes one ormore metrics that provide a measure of the customer's experience duringthe communications session. In some implementations, the parameters forwhich the metrics are computed are configured by the content providerwhile creating the interaction site. In other implementations, theparameters are instead pre-configured by the platform provider hostingthe interaction site. The parameters, which are described in greaterdetail in the following sections, may be associated with or indicativeof the customer's satisfaction level during the call.

In some implementations, the ARM 136 determines the customer'ssatisfaction level during a communications session based on the computedmetrics. The customer's satisfaction level may be represented, forexample, by a numerical score, which may be referred to as a customerexperience score. The numerical score may be an aggregate of the valuesof the computed metrics. For example, if there are five metrics computedwith values 8, 17, 3, 7 and 18 (on a scale of 1-20 each), then thecustomer experience score is 53 on a scale of 1-100. Alternatively, thebase numerical score may be a 100 from which the computed values aresubtracted to arrive at the customer experience score. For example,considering the same values for the metrics as above, if the base scoreis 100, then the customer experience score is 47.

Based on the manner in which the customer experience score is computed,a higher experience score may indicate greater satisfaction of thecustomer in interacting with the ARS 132, or with a human agent, orboth, during a communications session, as compared to a lower experiencescore. In some implementations, the reverse may be true. In someimplementations, more than one customer experience score may becomputed. For example, a first customer experience score may be computedbased on the interaction of the customer with the ARS 132, and a secondcustomer experience score may be computed based on the interaction ofthe customer with a human agent. A third customer experience score alsomay be computed as a sum of the above two customer experience scores.

The ARM 136 may compare the customer experience score to a thresholdvalue and, based on the results of the comparison, decide whether toroute the communications session to a human agent. As describedpreviously, the threshold value may be configured by the contentprovider, who may specify the threshold during creation of theinteraction site, or who may configure the threshold to be updatedperiodically, for example, during regular maintenance of the interactionsite configuration. In some implementations, the threshold value may bedynamically generated, or updated, or both, during or based on theoperation of the interaction site. For example, the ARM 136 may itselfgenerate or update the threshold value by analyzing customer experiencescores from various communications sessions that were initiated as aresult of a customer accessing or interacting with the interaction siteand/or with other interaction sites. In some implementations, thecontent provider may specify a range within which the threshold valuemay be dynamically varied by the ARM 136. In some implementations, theremay be several different customer experience scores as noted above,which are compared against several different threshold values.

As noted above, the ARM 136 may decide to route the communicationssession to a human agent upon comparing a customer experience score to athreshold value. For example, a single threshold value may be specifiedto be 60, on a scale of 1-100, by the content provider. If a customer'sexperience score is above 60, the associated communications session ishandled by the ARS 132, but if the score is 60 or below, the ARM routesthe communications session from the ARS 132 to an agent at a contactcenter, e.g., 140 or 150.

In some implementations, the ARM 136 also may track performance of theagents based on their interactions with customers during communicationssessions. For example, the ARM 136 may compute agent scores that providea numerical measure of agent performance. The agent scores may becomputed by measuring one or more metrics corresponding to agentparameters, which may be configured by the content provider, orpre-configured by the contact handling platform 130, or, by a suitablecombination of both.

In some implementations, the agent parameters may include experiencelevel, which provides a quantitative measure of the amount of experienceagents have (e.g., in terms of duration of employment, or number ofcalls, or both) in handling customer communications. For example, thevalue of the experience level parameter may correspond to “highexperience,” “medium experience,” or “low experience,” which maycorrelate to pre-configured thresholds. An agent with “high experience”may have a higher value assigned to the experience level parametercompared to an agent with “medium experience,” who in turn may have ahigher value assigned to the experience level parameter compared to anagent with “low experience.”

The agent parameters may include skills for handling customercommunications in specific categories. For example, expertise inhandling customer communications related to sales or technical supportmay be parameters that are used in computing agent scores.

The agent parameters also may include skills for handling differenttypes of customers. For example, expertise in handling voicecommunications from customers with certain accents may be an agentparameter used in computing agent scores. In such implementations, thecustomer accents may be determined by the SIAM 134 using speechrecognition algorithms. As another example, skill in handling customercommunications from customers who are agitated may be an agent parameterused in computing agent scores. This skill may indicate how well (i.e.,how successfully and/or quickly) an agent is able to soothe an agitatedcustomer while interacting with the customer.

Another agent parameter that may be considered is the skill of a humanagent in up-selling products to a customer, which indicates whether anagent successfully sells a product or service to a customer whileinteracting with the customer. In addition, this skill may indicatewhether the agent is successful in selling additional products orservices, or more premium versions of the products or services, to thecustomer.

The skill of a human agent in providing explanations to a customer maybe configured as an agent parameter. This parameter indicates how wellan agent is able to answer questions from a customer while interactingwith the customer.

In some implementations, the agent parameters may include clarity ofspeech in interacting with a customer during a customer communications.This parameter indicates how clearly an agent speaks while interactingwith a customer using a voice communications mode.

In some implementations, the content provider may configure specificweights for agent parameters corresponding to different skills, whichare used in computing agent scores. For example, sales skills may begiven a 5% weightage, technical support skills may be given a 7%weightage, and expertise in handling customers with accents may be givena 10% weightage.

The ARM 136 may arrange the agents in an order based on the agentscores. For example, in one implementation the agents may be arranged ina descending order from the agent with the highest agent score to thelowest, while in other implementations the agents may be arranged in areverse order, i.e., from the agent with the lowest agent score to thehighest.

In some implementations, when the ARM 136 determines that acommunications session should be routed from the ARS 132 to a humanagent, the ARM 136 may perform additional processing to select the mostsuitable human agent for the communications session. The selection maybe based on various factors, which include, among others, agent scores,history of customer experience scores during past interactions withdifferent agents (i.e., the second customer experience score asmentioned previously), the type of the communications (e.g., whether thecustomer is seeking technical support or has billing questions) and theskills of different agents in handling different types ofcommunications, as mentioned previously.

The ARM 136 may store the customer experience scores, the agent scores,and/or the historical data on customer experience with different agents,in the data store 138 or in memory local to STAM 134, or in othermachine-readable media coupled to the contact handling platform 130.

The data store 138 is configured to store instructions executed by thecontact handling platform 130 for hosting interaction sites configuredby various content providers. For example, the data store 138 may storepre-programmed scripts or, more generally, programming language modules139 corresponding to interaction sites hosted by the contact handlingplatform 130. Additionally or alternatively, the data store 138 may beconfigured to store interaction data corresponding to customerinteractions associated with communications sessions, for example, thecustomer experience scores, the agent scores, and/or other suitable datathat are used by the ARM 136.

In some implementations, the data store 138 may store interaction dataassociated with particular customers of a content provider. Theinteraction data may include information about the characteristics ofthe customer and also may include information about the customer'sinteractions with one or more of the interaction sites of the contentprovider. For example, the interaction data may include the gender, age,and/or accent of the customer, the choices made by the customer duringeach state of the interaction with an interaction site (e.g., whetherthe customer completed specific tasks while interacting with the ARS, orhow soon the customer pressed the zero button on the communicationsdevice 110 to connect to an agent), and the resources utilized duringeach state of the interaction with the interaction site (e.g., whetherthe customer interaction was limited to the ARS 132, or to a humanagent, or both). In some implementations, the data store 138 may storeaggregated interaction data associated with a particular interactionsite. For example, the aggregated interaction data may include dataspecifying a breakdown of genders among all customers that accessed theparticular interaction site. In some implementations, a user may opt-outsuch that his or her interaction data is then not stored in the datastore 138 while in some other implementations, a user may opt-in to havehis or her interaction data stored in the data store 160.

In some implementations, the data store 138 may be implemented as one ormore database servers, while in some other implementations it may beimplemented as a file system. In other implementations, the data store138 may be implemented as an array of hard disks or other suitablememory modules that are either included within, or coupled to, thecontact handling platform 130.

In some implementations, the contact center 140 or the contact center150, or both, may include a specific physical location, such as abuilding or an office campus. One or more agents may be physicallypresent in each contact center for interacting with customers whenassociated customer communications are routed to the agents. Forexample, agents 140_I, 140_2 through 140_N are present in contact center140, while agents 150_1, 150_2 through 150_N are present in contactcenter 150.

In other implementations, one or more of the contact centers 140 or 150may be a logical grouping of agents who are present in disparatelocations. For example, some of the agents 140_1, 140_2 through 140_Nmay work remotely, e.g., from their respective residences, while someother of the agents 140_I, 140_2 through 140_N may be present in anoffice building or campus associated with the contact center 140. Insome implementations, all of the agents 140_1, 140_2 through 140_N thatare managed by the contact center 140 may work remotely, with thecontact center 140 providing the infrastructure for coordinating andmanaging the agents, such as interfacing with the contact handlingplatform 130, routing to specific agents communications sessions thatare received from the ARM 136, and the like.

Some contact centers, such as 140, may be directly connected to thecontact handling platform 130, while some other contact centers, such as150, may be connected remotely, for example through the network 160. Insome implementations, the contact center 140 may be co-located with thecontact handling platform 130.

The network 160 is configured to allow connections between interactionsites hosted by the contact handling platform 130 and the contact center150. In some implementations, the network 120 is also configured toallow connections between the contact center 140 and the contact center150. The network 120 may include a circuit-switched voice or datanetwork, a packet-switched voice or data network, or any other networkable to carry voice and/or data, for example, Internet Protocol(IP)-based or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based networks, includingwired or wireless networks. The network 120 may be configured to handlevoice traffic, for example, Voice over IP (VOIP) network. The network120 also may be configured to handle web traffic such as hypertexttransfer protocol (HTTP) traffic and hypertext markup language (HTML)traffic. The network 120 may include the Internet, Wide Area Networks(WANs), Local Area Networks (LANs), analog or digital wired and wirelessnetworks (e.g., IEEE 802.11 networks, Public Switched Telephone Network(PSTN), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and DigitalSubscriber Line (xDSL)), Third Generation (3G) or Fourth Generation (4G)mobile telecommunications networks, a wired Ethernet network, a privatenetwork such as an intranet, radio, television, cable, satellite, and/orany other delivery or tunneling mechanism for carrying data, or anyappropriate combination of such networks.

The application builder 170 facilitates the creation of interactionsites. The application builder 190 utilizes various components to enablethe creation of interaction sites, such as a content provider interface172 and an application compiler 174. The different components of theapplication builder 170 may be co-located in a single physical location,or they may be geographically distributed, with dedicated high capacitylinks interconnecting the various components. In some implementations,the application builder 170 may be co-located with the contact handlingplatform 130, such that the two are parts of the same cohesive unit.

A content provider may access the application builder 170 over the datanetwork 120, for example using a computing device that includes one ormore software or hardware applications for performing communicationswith the application builder 170. The computing device used by thecontent provider may have various input/output modules to exchangeaudio, text, video, and other forms of data with the application builder170.

The content provider interface 172 is a GUI front-end for an applicationbuilder tool that can be used to build an interaction site that iscapable of handling interactions using multiple communications modes. Insome implementations, the content provider may access the contentprovider interface 172 using a web browser that runs on the computingdevice used by the content provider. By accessing the applicationbuilder using the content provider interface 172, the content providermay create interaction sites and interaction pages that will be used bythe multi-modal communications system 100 when processing acommunications request from a customer to the interaction site createdby the content provider.

In the context of this discussion, a “page” is a discrete programmingroutine configured to perform a discrete function. A page may be definedby a user of the contact handling platform 130 (e.g., a contentprovider) through an interaction with, for example, a GUI in which theuser may indicate the type of programming routine for the page and mayoptionally further indicate one or more other pages linked to the page.Processing may then proceed to the one or more other linked pages aftercompletion of execution of the page or, alternatively, after initiationof execution of the page but before completion of execution of the page.A page may be compiled into one or more programming language modules orscripts after the page is defined by the user through interaction withthe GUI. The one or more programming language modules or scripts may beused, for example, by a handling system to execute the discreteprogramming routine to perform the discrete function of the page.Examples of different pages include message pages, question pages, logicpages, transaction pages, call queue pages and multimodal action pages.These different pages are described in further detail in the co-pendingU.S. application Ser. No. 13/092,090, which is incorporated herein byreference for all purposes.

An interaction page is a particular type of page that is configured toperform the function of delivering content to, or receiving contentfrom, a customer via a communications mode used by the customer tocontact the contact handling platform 130 (e.g., voice communicationsmode for telephone contacts, web chat communications mode for chatcontacts, email communications mode for email contacts, and SMScommunications mode for SMS contacts). A “voice page” is a particulartype of interaction page that is configured to perform the function ofdelivering audible content to and/or receiving audible content from acustomer that called a telephone number assigned to the interactionsite. The customer is typically a caller to an IVR and the audiblecontent is typically speech. FIGS. 2A-2H illustrate examples of one ormore pages provided by a GUI of an application builder tool, such as theapplication builder 170.

The interaction sites and pages created by the content provider usingthe content provider interface 172 are interpreted and/or compiled by anapplication compiler 174 to generate scripts or, more generally,programming language modules that are executed by the contact handlingplatform 130 to interact with a user accessing the interaction site. Insome implementations, the application compiler 174 may generate aninteraction flow document, which may include XML scripts or code thatcorrespond to pages (i.e., programming modules) of an interaction sitecreated by the content provider. The interaction flow document may bestored in the data store 138. The one or more processors included in thecontact handling platform 130 may access the scripts from the data store138 and translate them into a language that can be processed by aparticular handling system when the contact handling platform 130interacts with a customer communicating with the interaction site.

In addition to the XML scripts, the application compiler 174 may alsogenerate other types of scripts (e.g. Java scripts) and other types ofexecutable code using other programming languages based on pages createdfor the interaction site by the content provider (e.g., based ontransaction pages). The other types of scripts may be used by thecontact handling platform 130 to interact with the customercommunicating with the interaction site over the data network 120.

FIGS. 2A-2H illustrate an example GUI 200 for an application buildertool that is used by a content provider to create an interaction sitefor a communications system that enables routing user communications tohuman agents. In general, each interaction site includes a flow of theinteraction states that provide an overview of how users interact withthe interaction site during the execution of the interaction site. Astate may be configured using a page, such as, for example, a voice pageor, more generally, an interaction page. In some implementations, thestates of the flow for an interaction site are the same across multiplecommunications channels. For example, a first customer may access aninteraction site using a voice communications device, and in the firststate, the first customer would experience a “Say Greeting” interactionpage that greets the first user via voice. A second customer may accessthe same interaction site using SMS, and according to the flow, thesecond customer would also interact with the “Say Greeting” interactionpage that greets the second customer via a SMS message.

It may be a tedious process if the content provider is required toconfigure the same greeting message for each of the communicationschannels. The content provider interface 172 of the application builder170 provides the content provider with a unified interface to create andconfigure pages that are common to the various communications modeswithout the need to enter duplicate information for these communicationsmodes. For example, the GUI 200 may be implemented by the contentprovider interface 172 included in the application builder 170 that isused by content provider for creating and managing an interaction sitehosted by the contact handling platform 130. Accordingly, the followingsections describe the GUI 200 with respect to the communications system100. As a specific example, the components of the GUI 200 are describedas used by a cellular service provider, referred to as “ExemplaryCellular,” to create an interaction site for providing customer serviceto its cellular subscribers. However, the GUI 200 and the associatedapplication builder tool may be used by other systems, content providersor application developers to create any interaction site to perform anydesired automated interaction flow in response to a customer contact.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example GUI 200 showing a site overview page 201that is presented to the content provider when the content provider logsinto the application builder 170 (e.g., by inputting a user identifierand a password) via, for example, a web browser running on the computingdevice used by the content provider. The Site Overview page 201 may beaccessed by the content provider by selecting an interaction site fromamong a displayed list of interaction sites associated with (e.g.,designed by, or for) the content provider, clicking on the desiredinteraction site (e.g., “Customer Support”) and then clicking on the“Site Overview” link 201 a in the navigation panel 203. In someimplementations, the content provider may have to click on a top leveltab, such as “Site Builder” 201 j, before clicking on the “SiteOverview” link 201 a. In some implementations, the navigation panel 203is present to the left of the page currently displayed (e.g., the SiteOverview page 201) and provides links to various system pages that canbe directly accessed by the content provider from the page currentlydisplayed.

The Site Overview page 201 provides a listing, referred to as the pageflow 202, of all the different pages created by the content provider todefine the particular interaction site (e.g., “Customer Support” in theexample shown). The name of the interaction site is specified in theheading 201 b of the Site Overview page 201 (e.g., “Customer Support”).

When a customer communicates with the “Customer Support” interactionsite, the first page that is processed is identified in the “Home Page”field 201 c. The content provider may specify any page that the contentprovider wants to be processed first as the Home Page 201 c. In someimplementations, the first page in the listing of pages is the same pagethat is listed as the “Home Page” 201 c. However, in otherimplementations, the page that is the “Home Page” 201 c is not the firstpage in the listing of the pages in the Site Overview page 201.

The order in which the various pages are processed is determined by thelinks in the respective pages. Each page usually contains a link to thenext page that is to be processed. For example, the interaction siteillustrated in the Site Overview page 201 has a page flow 202 of severalinteraction pages, including the interaction pages “Say Greeting”,“Capture Main Menu Options Response”, “Check for Customer ExperienceScore,” “Route to Agent,” “Route to Automation Path” and “Goodbye.” Adescriptive page name, which is shown by the Page Name field 201 d, isassociated with each page and helps to identify the function of thecorresponding page. In addition, each page also may be identified by apage number that is shown in the Page # field 201 e. The page name andpage number of a page are specified by the content provider whencreating the pages for the interaction site. A page may have a uniquepage name, or it may have a page name that is similar to the page nameof another page. In case two or more pages share the same page name,they may be differentiated based on the page numbers. In someimplementations, a page may be referred to by different names indifferent linking pages. However, the page number for each page uniquelyidentifies a page. A user may access and modify any of the pagesdisplayed in the page flow 202 by selecting them from the displayedlist.

In some implementations, the type of each page is denoted by a graphicalicon that is shown by the Type field 201 f. Pages of different types mayhave different icons. For example, the pages “Say Greeting” and“Goodbye” are message pages, “Capture Main Menu Options Response” and“Route to Automation Path” are question pages, “Check for CustomerExperience Score” is a logic page and “Route to Agent” is a call queuepage, as indicated by their different icons.

Additionally or alternatively, in some implementations the Site Overviewpage 201 may present the pages in a two dimensional or three dimensionaldisplay that visually depicts the links between the pages. For example,each page may be displayed as a page graphical element, such as, forexample, a rectangle or a block, with one or more link graphicalelements, such as, for example, lines, connecting the page graphicalelements to other page graphical elements to which they are linked. Textmay be overlaid on or displayed in proximity to the page and/or linkgraphical elements to communicate the identity of the corresponding pageand/or the nature of the link between the elements.

The content provider may create a new page by clicking the “Add Page”button icon 201 g. When the “Add Page” button icon 201 g is clicked, anew page is added to the page flow 202. In response to selecting thebutton icon 201 g, the GUI 200 may present a set of page templates forselection in, for example, a drop-down list. The page templates mayinclude, for example, message pages, question pages, logic pages, callqueue pages, transaction pages, and multimodal action pages. The usermay select a page template from the list to generate a page of thecorresponding type using the template. The template presents to the userthe necessary fields and/or controls for that page type and the user maypopulate the fields (e.g., by typing text into the fields) and/or selectthe controls to generate a page of the corresponding type.

Alternatively, a new page may be created by copying a previously createdpage. The content provider may select the page to be copied by checkingthe checkbox to the left of the page to be copied and then selecting the“Copy” button 201 h. An existing page can be deleted by checking thecheckbox to the left of the page, and then clicking the “Delete” button201 i.

In some implementations, the contact information for the interactionsite is provided by the contact field 204 in the navigation panel 203.The contact field 204 includes information corresponding to eachcommunications mode supported by the interaction site. In the exampleshown in FIG. 2A, the “Customer Support” interaction site supportstelephone. SMS, web chat and email communications modes, and thereforethe contact field 204 includes information for each of these modes. Acustomer communicating with the interaction site may either call thetelephone number 1-800-123-4567, send an SMS to “12345 example,” sendweb chat messages to www.example.com/chat, or send an email tosupport@example.com, as shown by the contact field 204, or use anysuitable combination of all of the above.

As described previously, as part of generating the interaction site, thecontent provider may configure various parameters that are to be used bythe contact handling platform 130 for computing performance metrics forcustomer communications with the interaction site. In someimplementations, the content provider may configure these parametersusing settings interfaces. FIG. 2B illustrates an example GUI 200showing a settings interface “Customer Experience Settings” 206 that ispresented to the content provider when the content provider configuresparameters used by ARM 136 in computing metrics for customercommunications. In this context, a settings interface is an interface(e.g., a web page) accessible through a web browser that providesvarious application-level data points or parameters, which are used byscripts or, more generally, programming language modules implemented bythe interaction pages in computing a customer experience score. Thecustomer experience score is a system variable that is used by theapplication (i.e., the interaction site) in determining whether to routea customer's communications from the ARS 132 to a human agent. Inparticular, the customer experience score is used by the ARM 136 indetermining the routing path for a customer's communications made to aninteraction site hosted by the contact handling platform 130. A settingsinterface is differentiated from an interaction page in that a settingsinterface does not describe scripts or, more generally, programminglanguage modules that are executed as part of an interaction flowbetween a customer and an interaction site.

A content provider may access the interface 206 by selecting aninteraction site from among a displayed list of interaction sitesassociated with (e.g., designed by, or for) the content provider,clicking on the desired interaction site (e.g., “Customer Support”) andthen clicking on the “Speech/Text Analytics” link 206 a in thenavigation panel 203. In some implementations, the content provider mayhave to click on a top level tab, such as “Site Builder” 201 j, beforeclicking on the “Speech/Text Analytics” link 206 a in the navigationpanel 203.

The interface 206, as shown, includes application-level settings orparameters 208 that are used when a customer interacts with a callhandling system, such as an IVR, during a communications session usingvoice communications mode. In some implementations, the GUI 200 mayinclude different settings interfaces for different handling systems,such as SMS, email, or web chat, that are used for computing metricswhen the corresponding communications mode is used during interactionbetween the customer and the interaction site. In some implementations,different parameters may be configured for the different settingsinterfaces, while in other implementations, the different settingsinterfaces may use the same parameters, but with different configuredvalues for the different communications modes. In some implementations,the GUI 200 may include a single settings interface to set theparameters that will be used for all of the different handling systems.

In some implementations, the platform provider may pre-configure theparameters that are shown in a settings interface. In otherimplementations, the platform provider may enable the content providerto select from a set of parameters that are to be included in a settingsinterface, or enable the content provider to create its own parameters,or a suitable combination of both.

Referring to the interface 206, the parameters 208 include “VUI (VoiceUser Interface) Errors (No Input/No Match),” “Tasks Not Completed,”“Wait Time in IVR,” “Topics/Phrases Recognized,” and “Zero Out Time.”The ARM 136 measures “VUI Errors (No Input/No Match)” when a customer,while interacting with an IVR during a voice call, either does notprovide an input (i.e., “no input” (NI)) in response to a query from theIVR, or provides an incorrect input that does not match (i.e., “nomatch” (NM)) the response expected by the IVR. For example, wheninteracting with the customer regarding billing, the IVR may query“Press 1 to hear your bill; press 2 to make a payment; press 3 to returnto the main menu.” After making this statement, the IVR waits for apre-determined time period (e.g., 5 seconds) for the customer to pressone of the buttons numbered 1, 2, or 3 on the communications device 110.However, the customer may not press any button before the time periodexpires, in which case the IVR may log the lack of response as oneoccurrence of a “no input” (NI) VUI error. Alternatively, the customermay press button numbered 5 on the communications device 110, which isdifferent from any of the selections expected by the IVR in response tothe query. In this case, the IVR may log the response as one occurrenceof a “no match” (NM) VUI error. In some implementations, after such anerror occurs, the IVR may repeat the query to allow the customer to makea correct selection in a fresh attempt. In some implementations, thecontent provider may configure whether the IVR repeats the query or howmany times the IVR repeats the query.

The “VUI Errors (No Input/No Match)” may occur, for example, when theIVR is not well-designed such that the customer is confused, or when thecustomer is frustrated or angry and does not want to interact with theIVR. For these reasons, ARM 136 can use “VUI Errors (No Input/No Match)”as a metric indicating a degree of satisfaction, or ease of use, of thecustomer in interacting with the IVR. A number of “VUI Errors (NoInput/No Match)” above a certain threshold may indicate that thecustomer is unhappy or having difficulty with the automated responsesystem, and therefore the call should be routed to a human agent who maybe better able to meet the customer's needs.

The “Tasks Not Completed” parameter is measured when a customer does notcomplete a task, which may comprise series of interactions with theautomated response system. For example, a task may be that the customerprovides her credit card information for a transaction, which includesthe customer making a series of button presses on her voicecommunications device to enter the credit card number. In this exemplarysituation, “Tasks Not Completed” may be measured when, instead ofcompleting entering the credit card number, the customer repeatedlypresses some non-numeric button, such as “#” or “*,” on her voicecommunications device, which may be an expression of the customer'sdissatisfaction or difficulty in interacting with the automated responsesystem. In this particular example, the “Task Not Completed” measurementalso corresponds to a “VUI Error (No Match)” measurement. A number of“Tasks Not Completed” measurements above a certain threshold mayindicate that the customer is unhappy or having difficulty with theautomated response system, and therefore the call should be routed to ahuman agent who may be better able to meet the customer's needs.

In some implementations, a content provider, while designing ormodifying an interaction site, may identify tasks of the interactionsite as a group of interlinked pages of the interaction site.Specifically, the content provider may define a set of different tasksfor an interaction site, with each task in the set corresponding to adifferent grouping of one or more interlinked pages. For example, thetask of requesting a checking account balance may be identified as pages#1000 through #4200 of a bank's interaction site, and the task oftransferring money between bank accounts may be identified as pages#7200 through #7700 of the bank's interaction site. A customer'sprogression through the pages corresponding to a task may be tracked todetermine whether or not a task is successfully completed.

A task may, therefore, be defined as a sequence of interactions with theIVR that may correspond to, for example, a set of interlinked pages. Ifa customer fails to complete the full sequence of interactionscorresponding to the task, the task may be deemed not completed. Forexample, if the customer provides the input for the first two pages of atask that constitutes 4 interlinked pages but then fails to provide thedesired input for the third page of the task by, for example, choosingan option that results in the interaction flow instead going back to amain menu of the IVR, the task will be deemed not completed. Suchbehavior constitutes a “Task Not Completed” measurement and not a “VUIError (No Input/No Match)” measurement.

In some implementations, a series of “VUI Errors (No Input/No Match)”may constitute a “Tasks Not Completed” measurement. This may be thecase, for example, when the task at issue includes a number ofsub-tasks. Each sub-task may be an IVR query, with the IVR expecting thecustomer to make a specific button press on the customer communicationsdevice in response to the query. However, on the first attempt for someof these sub-tasks, either the customer does not provide an input withinthe time out period, leading to a “no input (NI)” error, or the customermakes a button press different from that expected by the IVR, leading toa “no match (NM)” error. The task may be deemed not completed if athreshold number of VUI errors occur, causing the IVR to terminate thetask prematurely and return to, for example, a main menu.

When the ARM 136 routes a customer communications to a human agent, butthe customer has to wait before he or she is connected to the agent, the“Wait Time in IVR” parameter is measured. In some implementations, themetric provides an indication of the customer's dissatisfaction as thecustomer waits in a connection queue before he or she is connected to anagent. The higher the value of the “Wait Time in IVR” metric, (i.e., thelonger the customer has to wait in queue), the more dissatisfied thecustomer is likely to be. Therefore, in some implementations, the metricis provided to the human agent when the call is connected such that theagent is aware of the customer's potential heightened dissatisfactionwith the communications session.

The “Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter corresponds to words spoken bythe customer that form part of topics or phrases configured to escalate,i.e., speedily route, the customer communications session to a humanagent. In some implementations, the STAM 134 records and analyzes thecustomer speech when the customer interacts with the ARS 132. Inanalyzing the customer's speech, the STAM 134 looks for certain words orphrases spoken by the customer that are identified by the contentprovider, or the platform provider, or both, as indicative of thecustomer's level of dissatisfaction in interacting with the ARS 132. Forexample, when the ARS 132 asks the customer to make a certain buttonpress on his or her voice communications device to respond to an ARSquery, the customer, instead of making the button press, may say “I hatethis,” or “I want to talk to an agent.” The STAM 134 may find a matchfor this customer utterance with a phrase configured by the contentprovider, and provide this information to the ARM 136.

In some implementations, upon receiving the information from the SIAM134, the ARM 136 may route the call immediately to a human agent. Inother implementations, the ARM 136 may update the value of the metriccorresponding to “Topics/Phrases Recognized.” When the value of themetric reaches a pre-determined threshold, it may indicate that thecustomer is dissatisfied. Consequently, at this point the ARM 136 mayroute the call to a human agent, who may be better able to handle thecall.

The “Zero Out Time” parameter measures how quickly a customer attemptsto talk to a human agent after a communications session is establishedwith the contact handling platform 130. In some implementations, whenthe ARS 132 initiates interaction with the customer after a call isconnected, the customer may not want to interact with the automatedresponse system, but instead want to talk to an agent. The customer mayindicate his or her intention by pressing the zero or other well-knownbutton on his or her voice communications device, which, in someimplementations, may indicate a connection to an agent. Upon detectingthe customer pressing the zero or other well-known button, the ARS 132may log the input and forward the information to the ARM 136, whichupdates the measurement of the metric corresponding to “Zero Out Time.”

In some implementations, the ARM 136 may route the call immediately to ahuman agent, while in other implementations the ARM 136 may wait tillthe value of the metric reaches a certain threshold, at which point thecall is routed to a human agent. A high value of the metric above thethreshold may indicate that the customer is dissatisfied, and thereforethe call should be routed to a human agent who may be better able tohandle the call.

Each of the parameters 208 is characterized by a weight 208 a, and aunit of measurement 208 b. The weight 208 a indicates the numericalvalue that is assigned to a parameter by the ARM 136, while the unit 208b indicates the granularity at which the value is assigned, foroccurrence of the condition corresponding to the parameter during acommunications session. The assigned value is used to compute theoverall customer experience score. For example, as shown, consideringthe “Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter, for every detection of wordsor phrases in the customer's speech that matches one topic or phrase(i.e., the unit 208 b) pre-configured in the system, a 5% weight 208 ais assigned to the parameter.

Considering the “Zero Out Time” parameter, if the ARS 132 detects thatthe customer has pressed the zero button, for example to indicate thathe or she wants to talk to an agent, a 5% weight 208 a is assigned if apositive detection is made in every 2 minute time interval (i.e., theunit 208 b). In some implementations, the time interval for the “ZeroOut Time” parameter indicates the frequency at which occurrences of thezero button press is measured. In such cases, the weight assigned to theparameter will be 5% in a 2 minute time interval even if the customerpresses the zero button 10 times within that time interval. In theanother 2 minute time interval, the weight assigned also will be 5%,even if the customer presses the zero button 1 time within that timeinterval. However, in some other implementations, every press of thezero button is measured. For example, if the customer presses the zerobutton 10 times within a 2 minute time interval, then weight assigned tothe parameter will be 5%×10, i.e., 50%. In such cases, the time intervalmay not be used in computing the value of the “Zero Out Time” parameter.

In the above example, the ARM 136 may set the default value of theoverall customer experience score to 100%, which indicates that thecustomer is fully satisfied in interacting with the ARS 132. If a 5%weight is assigned to the “Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter, the ARM136 updates the customer experience score to 100%-5%=95%. Then, if a 5%weight is assigned to the “Zero Out Time” parameter, the ARM 136 updatesthe customer experience score to 95%-5%=90%. In this manner, for everyassignment of a weight to one of the parameters 208 by the contacthandling platform 130, the customer experience score is updated toreflect the occurrence of the condition being measured by thecorresponding parameter.

In some implementations, the weights 208 a and the units 208 b arepre-determined by the contact handling platform 130, and provided to thecontent provider when the corresponding parameters are selected by thecontent provider. In some implementations, the content provider may beallowed to set its own weights and/or units, or change the values of theweights and/or units provided by the contact handling platform. This maybe useful in situations where the content provider wants to customizethe response of its interaction site to suit the perceived needs of itscustomers, which may differ from content provider to content provider,or from interaction site to interaction site, or both.

For example, the contact handling platform 130 may set the defaultweight 208 a and unit 208 b of the “Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameterto 20% for every 3 topics, respectively, in which case the ARM 136 willassign a weight of 20% to the parameter in intervals of every threedetections of words or phrases in the customer's speech that matchestopics or phrases pre-configured in the system. However, these valuesmay be unsuitable for a particular content provider, who may considerthat either the default weight is too high, or the frequency ofdetection (i.e., the unit) is too low, or both. Therefore, the contentprovider may change the weight 208 a and unit 208 b of the“Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter to 5% for every 1 topic, as shownand discussed previously.

In this manner, the content provider may customize the weights and/orthe units of measurement for the parameters that it selects. In someimplementations, such as when all the parameters available in the systemare provided in the setting interface 206, the content provider mayde-select a parameter by setting its weight to 0%. Therefore, for everyoccurrence of the associated condition, a 0% weight will be assigned tothe parameter based on the unit of measurement. Consequently, thecustomer experience score that is computed will be unchanged, since, forexample, 90%-0%=90%.

As indicated previously, other parameters may be available in and usedby the system, which are not selected by the content provider andtherefore are not shown by the settings interface 206. For example,“Navigation Pattern” is a parameter that is used for measuring thecustomer's responses and actions when interacting with the ARS 132. Thisparameter may measure what buttons the customer is pressing on his orher communications device during the interaction, and whether thesecustomer inputs match the pattern of behavior expected by the ARS 132.Customer inputs that do not match the expected pattern of behavior(i.e., they are unrecognized by the ARS 132) potentially indicate thatthe customer is having difficulty in interacting with the automatedsystem. In some implementations, the “Navigation Pattern” parameter mayinclude the “Tasks Not Completed” parameter as a subset.

Another parameter is “Zero Action,” which may be measured when thecustomer provides some pre-configured input to indicate a desire toconnect to a human agent during an interaction with the ARS 132,irrespective of whether the ARS 132 expects some other input in responseto ARS queries. For example, the interaction site may be configured suchthat in voice communications mode, a ‘0’ button press on a customer'svoice communications device may be reserved for an agent connectionrequest. The customer may press the ‘0’ button one or more times whileinteracting with the ARS 132, even if the ARS may be requesting someother input. This may potentially indicate strong desire on thecustomer's part to talk to an agent, instead of the ARS.

In some implementations, the weights 208 a are not assigned aspercentages but rather are assumed using some other unit, such asabsolute values. This may be the case, for example, when the customerexperience score is computed as a sum of the weights, instead of bysubtracting the weights from a default customer experience score asshown in FIG. 2B. In such a case, the default customer experience scoremay be 0, and for every weight assigned to a parameter, the customerexperience score is updated by adding the weight to the score. Forexample, the “Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter may have a weight of5. When the corresponding condition is detected by the system, thecustomer experience score is updated to 0+5=5. The “Tasks Not Completed”parameter may have a weight of 10. When the corresponding condition isdetected by the system, the customer experience score is updated to5+10=15.

As indicated previously, in some implementations the content providerconfigures the topics or phrases that are used by the STAM 134 whileanalyzing the customer's speech for the “Topics/Phrases Recognized”parameter. FIG. 2C illustrates an example GUI 200 showing a settingsinterface 210 that is presented to the content provider when the contentprovider configures the topics or phrases that are used for the“Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter. In particular, the STAM 134checks whether the customer's speech includes one or more of the topicsor phrases configured in the settings interface 210. For every matchthat is found, the STAM 134 informs the ARM 136, which updates the“Topics/Phrases Recognized” parameter based the associated weight 208 a,at the frequency indicated by the unit 208 b.

The content provider may access the interface 210 by selecting aninteraction site from among a displayed list of interaction sitesassociated with (e.g., designed by, or for) the content provider,clicking on the desired interaction site (e.g., “Customer Support”) andthen clicking on the “Speech/Text Engine” tab 201 k. Additionally oralternatively, in some implementations, the interface 210 may beaccessed by selecting a link in a tab, rather than by selecting the tab201 k. For example, the interface 210 may be accessed by selecting alink in the navigation panel 203 of the “Site Builder” tab 201 j.

The interface 210, as shown, includes topics or phrases, or both, thatare used when a customer interacts with a call handling system, such asan IVR, during a communications session using voice communications mode.In some implementations, the GUI 200 may include different settingsinterfaces for different handling systems, such as SMS, email, or webchat, that are used for computing the “Topics/Phrases Recognized”parameter when the corresponding communications mode is used duringinteraction between the customer and the interaction site. In someimplementations, different topics or phrases may be configured for thedifferent settings interfaces, while in other implementations, thedifferent settings interfaces may use the same topics or phrases, butwith different values for the topic stickiness, which is describe below.In some implementations, the GUI 200 may include a single settingsinterface to set the topics or phrases that will be used for all of thedifferent handling systems.

In some implementations, the platform provider may pre-configure thetopics or phrases that are shown in the settings interface 210. In otherimplementations, the platform provider may enable the content providerto select from a set of pre-determined topics and phrases, or enable thecontent provider to create its own topics and phrases, or a suitablecombination of both. For example, the content provider, such as thecellular service provider “Exemplary Cellular” described previously, mayenter keywords or phrases in the input field 212 and generate a phrasefor use by the SIAM 134 by pressing the “Add” button 213. Phrases thatare created by the content provider are displayed in the panel 214, suchas the phrases “I want to cancel my service plan” and “Your service isterrible,” as shown.

When generating a phrase, the content provider may specify the “topicstickiness” for the phrase, which is a confidence-level that provides athreshold value for the system to determine whether a match for theassociated phrase is detected in the customer's speech. For example, ifthe topic stickiness is configured as 70%, then the SIAM 134 maydetermine a match for the corresponding phrase in the customer's speechif the SIAM 134 is at least 70% confident in its determination.

For each configured phrase, the content provider may specify universaltopic stickiness by selecting the radio button 216 a, or custom topicstickiness by selecting the radio button 218 a. The universal topicstickiness is a system-wide value that is used by default unless thecustom topic stickiness is selected. In some implementations, theuniversal topic stickiness is pre-configured by the contact handlingplatform 130, while in other implementations the content providerspecifies a value of the universal topic stickiness, such as 80%confidence-level. The value that is configured for the universal topicstickiness provides an indication of the degree of certainty that thecontent provider desires in the speech analysis and pattern matchingperformed by the SIAM 134. That is, a higher universal topic stickinessvalue indicates that a higher degree of certainty in the resultsgenerated by the SIAM 134 is necessary before the SIAM 134 concludesthat a match has occurred. This may be useful, for example, in caseswhere the content provider does not have much margin for error inanalyzing the customer's speech, such as when the content provider is acompliance-enforcement organization.

The custom topic stickiness is selected by the content provider when itwants to specify a confidence-level other than the default value forparticular phrases. This may be useful, for example, when the contentprovider wants the STAM 134 to determine that a match of a particularphrase has occurred when the match certainty or confidence exceeds athreshold confidence level that is different from that specified by thedefault confidence-level. In such cases, the content provider specifiesthe custom confidence-level as part of generating the phrase byselecting the radio button 218 a, and specifying the value for theconfidence-level in the associated field.

When the universal topic stickiness is selected for a phrase, then theicon “U” 216 b is shown next to the associated phrase in the panel 214.On the other hand, when the custom topic stickiness is selected for aphrase, then the icon 218 b showing the specified confidence-level valueis presented next to the associated phrase in the panel 214. Forexample, the cellular service provider may configure the defaultconfidence-level to be 70%, and specify the phrase “I want to cancel myservice plan” with universal stickiness. On the other hand, the cellularservice provider may specify the phrase “Your service is terrible” witha custom stickiness having the confidence-level value of 30%.Consequently, when the SIAM 134 analyzes the speech of a cellularsubscriber who calls the cellular service provider's interaction site,such as the “Customer Support” site described previously, the STAM 134determines an affirmative match for the phrase “I want to cancel myservice plan” if it is at least 70% confident in its determination.However, the STAM 134 may determine an affirmative match for the phrase“Your service is terrible” if it is even 30% confident in itsdetermination.

When the content provider generates a phrase using the interface 210,the contact handling platform 130 analyzes the phrase and provides arating for the effectiveness of the keyword or phrase, which isdisplayed using the icon 220 next to the associated phrase. Theeffectiveness indicator is a system-generated analysis of the strengthof the keywords or the phrase, or the length of the phrase, for use bythe STAM 134.

For example, when the cellular service provider configures the phrase “Iwant to cancel my service plan,” the contact handling platform 130 mayrate the phrase to be of medium effectiveness, as shown by the “M” iconnext to the phrase in the panel 214. The medium effectiveness indicatesthat the keywords included in the phrase are of medium strength inhelping the STAM 134 to find a match for the phrase in a customer'sspeech. In contrast, if the cellular service provider had configured thesame phrase as “cancel,” then the contact handling platform may haverated the phrase as low effectiveness (e.g., by affixing the icon “L”next to the phrase), indicating that the keywords included in the phraseare of low strength in helping the SIAM 134 to find a match for thephrase in a customer's speech. On the other hand, if the contacthandling platform 130 determines a phrase to be highly effective, itindicates such a rating by the icon “H,” as shown associated with thephrase “Your service is terrible.” In this manner, the contact handlingplatform uses the effectiveness indicator to help the content providerconfigure phrases that are easier to recognize by the SIAM 130, andaccordingly return more accurate results corresponding to customers'speeches.

The content provider may group the phrases into different topiccategories, which are shown by the listing 222 a in the settingsinterface 210. In some implementations, the content provider may groupthe phrases into topic sub-categories of different categories, which areshown by the listing 222 b in the settings interface 210. The contentprovider may create new topic categories and sub-categories using thebutton 224.

A topic category may be selected by clicking on the name of thecategory, upon which all the phrases that have been created for thatparticular category are shown in the panel 214. Any new phrase that isconfigured using the input field 212 is added to the selected category.

For example, the cellular service provider may specify two topiccategories “Dissatisfaction” and “Escalation,” and may have selected the“Dissatisfaction” category as shown in FIG. 2C. In the “Dissatisfaction”category, the cellular service provider may include phrases that areindicative of a customer's dissatisfaction with the service provided bythe cellular service provider, such as the phrases, “I want to cancel myservice plan” and “Your service is terrible,” shown in the panel 214. Ifthe cellular service provider now creates a new phrase, that new phrasewill be grouped into the “Dissatisfaction” category.

Continuing with the above example, the cellular service provider mayspecify two topic sub-categories “Technical Question” and “Sales” forthe “Escalation” topic category, as shown. Phrases that indicate thatthe customer is seeking technical help, such as “My phone is notpowering on” or “I am not getting a signal,” may be grouped under“Technical Question.” On the other hand, phrases that indicate that thecustomer is a prospective subscriber, such as “I want to know about yourplans” or “I would like to upgrade,” may be grouped under “Sales.”

After the various parameters are configured using settings interfaces asdescribed in the preceding sections, the contact handling platform 130analyzes customer interactions in terms of the configured parameters. Insome implementations, the background processes continuously monitor thecustomer interactions and update the parameter values wheneverconditions corresponding to the parameters are detected. For example,the STAM 134 continuously checks for a customer's speech as the customerinteracts with the ARS 132, and searches for patterns in the speech thatmatch one or more of the configured phrases.

As described previously, the parameter values are used to compute thecustomer experience score. In some implementations, the customerexperience score may be computed continuously in the background by theARM 136. In other implementations, the customer experience score may becomputed or updated whenever instructions are encountered in aninteraction page for using the customer experience score. Theinstructions may be configured by the content provider. For example, thecontent provider may include, in an interaction page, a link to the pagethat includes the instructions dependent on the customer experiencescore. Accordingly, the customer experience score is computed or updatedwhenever the script corresponding to this interaction page is executedas part of the interaction flow for the site.

In some implementations, the content provider may include, in everyinteraction page, a link to the page that includes the instructionsdependent on the customer experience score. In such implementations, thecustomer experience score is computed or updated after every interactionbetween the customer and the contact handling platform 130.

FIG. 2D illustrates an example GUI 200 showing an interaction page 226,titled “Capture Main Menu Options Response” and assigned page number2000, which includes a link to a page that includes the instructions forrouting based on the customer experience score. The interaction page 226may be accessed by the content provider from the “Site Overview” page201, by clicking on the link shown in the Page Name field 201 d that ispart of the page flow 202. For example, the content provider may clickon the “Capture Main Menu Options Response” page name in the page flow202 to access the interaction page 226.

The interaction page 226 includes various information and instructions228 that are implemented when the script or, more generally, programminglanguage module corresponding to the page 226 is executed as part of theinteraction flow for the “Customer Support” interaction site. Forexample, when the interaction flow implements the instructions 228, theARS 132 may prompt the customer with the phrase “Please press or say 1for existing ticket. Press or say 2 for new. For anything else pleasepress 3.” The content provider may configure this phrase by inputtingthe phrase (e.g., by directly typing in the phrase) into an instructionfield 228 a. The instructions also indicate, as shown by the instructionfield 228 b, that the response expected from the customer is a keyword,which may be deduced either from the customer's speech or from thetouch-tone sequence that is pressed on the customer's communicationsdevice.

In some implementations, the interaction page 226 includes a group ofradio buttons 228 c, which allows the content provider to select aspecific communications mode for configuration. The communications modeslisted in the group 220 correspond to the enabled communications modesthat are supported for the interaction site. As shown, IVR is selectedin the group 228 c, which indicates that the GUI 200 allows the contentprovider to input parameters that configure the interaction page 226 forthe voice communications mode.

In addition to the above, the instructions 228 may specify that, afterthe customer response, the interaction flow should jump to page“2100—Check for Customer Experience Score,” as shown by the instructionfield 228 d. As described in greater detail below, the page “2100—Checkfor Customer Experience Score” includes instructions for routing basedon the customer experience score. Accordingly, when the interaction flowreaches the end of the instructions 228, the contact handling platform130 (specifically, the ARM 136) computes the customer experience score,upon executing the instructions specified in the page “2100—Check forCustomer Experience Score.” In this manner, the customer experiencescore may be computed or updated during an interaction flow whenever alink to the page that includes the instructions using the customerexperience score is encountered while executing the scripts orprogramming language modules corresponding to the interaction pages.

FIG. 2E illustrates an example GUI 200 showing the interaction page 230,titled “Check for Customer Experience Score” and assigned page number2100, which includes the instructions for routing the interaction flowbased on the customer experience score. During site generation, thecontent provider may access the page 230 from the “Site Overview” page201, by clicking on the link shown in the Page Name field 201 d that ispart of the page flow 202. For example, the content provider may clickon the “Check for Customer Experience Score” page name in the page flow202 to access the interaction page 230.

The interaction page 230 includes instructions 232, shown in the “Main”tab 234 a, which are implemented when the script corresponding to thepage 230 is executed as part of the interaction flow for the “CustomerSupport” interaction site. For example, after executing the scriptcorresponding to the interaction page 226, the interaction flow executesthe instructions 232 in page 230, since the instructions in page 226include a link to the page 230, as described previously.

As shown, the content provider may configure the instructions 232 tocompare the customer experience score to a threshold value of 60%, whichis specified by the input field 232 a. The threshold value provides ameasure of the customer's level of satisfaction in communicating withthe interaction site. In implementations where the customer experiencescore is computed as a percentage, as described with reference to thesettings interface 206, higher values of the customer experience scoreindicate greater customer satisfaction in interacting with the ARS 132.In such implementations, the threshold value indicates a lower limitsuch that when a customer's experience score reaches or falls below thatlower limit, the customer's level of satisfaction in interacting withthe ARS 132 is deemed to have fallen so low that the communicationssession should be routed to a human agent, who may be able to handle thecustomer's requirements better and consequently increase his or herlevel of satisfaction. On the other hand, if the customer experiencescore is above the threshold, then it indicates that the customer'slevel of satisfaction in interacting with the ARS 132 is sufficientlygood that the communications session may be continued with the ARS 132.

The threshold value is configured by the content provider by inputting(e.g., typing in) an intended value into the input field 232 a. In someimplementations, the contact handling platform 130 may provide a defaultthreshold value that may be modified by the content provider. Thecontent provider may configure a particular value for the thresholdbased on various factors, which may include its own analysis of therequirements for its customers, the economic incentive that it may havein keeping customers satisfied versus the tradeoff in the cost involvedin hiring more agents. For example, the content provider may configure ahigh value for the threshold in the page 230, such as 80%, if it wantsto route a customer communications to a human agent relatively quickly,as compared to the case where the threshold is configured to be 60%.This may be the case because, starting at a default customer experiencescore of 100% for a customer communications session, as described withreference to the settings interface 206, a fewer number of conditionscorresponding to configured parameters need to be measured to reach the80% threshold, compared to the number of conditions corresponding to theconfigured parameters to reach the 60% threshold.

However, a high value of the threshold may also mean that more customercommunications will be routed to human agents. Therefore, the contentprovider may have to hire more agents, which would typically be moreexpensive compared to using the ARS 132.

As described previously, in some implementations, when the interactionflow executes the instructions 232 during a customer communications, thecontact handling platform 130 updates the value of the customerexperience score and compares the updated value to the configuredthreshold. If the customer experience score is greater than thethreshold, then it indicates that the customer's level of satisfactionin interacting with the ARS 132 is sufficiently good such that thecommunications session may be routed back to the automated system, whichis indicated by the instruction “go to ‘4000-Route to Automation’.” Thepage “4000-Route to Automation” may provide instructions for continuingthe interaction using the ARS 132.

On the other hand, if the customer experience score is below thethreshold, then the customer's satisfaction level in interacting withthe ARS 132 is so low that the interaction flow should route thecommunications session to a human agent, which is indicated by theinstruction “go to ‘2500—Route to Agent’.” As described in greaterdetail below, the page “Route to Agent”, which has been assigned pagenumber 2500, provides instructions for connecting the customer to ahuman agent.

In some implementations, the page 230 may include instructions forhandling error conditions. This may be useful if the interaction flowruns into an error while trying to route the call to a human agent, forexample, if the application is unable to execute the scripts orprogramming language modules described by the page 2500 (which may bethe case if the page is corrupted for some reason), or if a human agentis not available at that particular time to accept the customercommunications session. FIG. 2F shows instructions 236 a and 236 bprovided by the interaction page 230 for handling the interaction flowin case of an error condition.

The content provider may configure the instructions 236 a and 236 b byselecting the “Advanced Options” tab 234 b in the page 230. As shown,the content provider may configure the instructions 236 a to specifythat upon encountering an error condition, the interaction flow shouldmove to the “Home Page,” which is the interaction page “Say Greeting”assigned page number 1000, as specified by 201 c in the “Site Overview”page 201. Accordingly, in the event that the interaction flow cannotconnect to a human agent while routing based on the instructions 232,then the interaction flow will return to the first page in theinteraction flow. Consequently, the customer will re-hear, from the ARS132, the greeting specified in the interaction page 1000.

In some implementations, the content provider also may configure theinstructions 236 b such that the contact handling platform 130 will sendan email to the email address “admin@example.com,” which is specified bythe content provider in the field 238. As shown, the content providermay configure the instructions 236 b to send an email log of thetransaction “on error only.” Therefore, a transaction log will be sentto the email address specified only if the interaction flow cannotconnect to a human agent while routing based on the instructions 232.

In the normal operation of the interaction site (i.e., no error isencountered), when the customer experience score is below the specifiedthreshold during execution of the instructions 232, the interaction flowprocesses the instructions specified in the page 2500. FIG. 2Gillustrates an example GUI 200 showing the interaction page 240, titled“Route to Agent” and assigned page number 2500, which includes theinstructions for routing the customer communications to an agent. Duringsite generation, the content provider may access the page 240 from the“Site Overview” page 201, by clicking on the link shown in the Page Namefield 201 d that is part of the page flow 202. For example, the contentprovider may click on the “Route to Agent” page name in the page flow202 to access the interaction page 240.

In the example shown, the interaction page 240 is generated by thecellular service provider as the content provider for routing thecommunications of its customers who contact the company's “CustomerSupport” interaction site. The interaction page 240 includes a list ofagents 244, shown in the “Main” tab 242 a. Each agent in the list 244includes an agent name 244 a, and a contact point corresponding to eachcommunications mode supported by the interaction site. As discussedpreviously, the interaction site may support telephone, SMS, email andweb chat communications modes. Therefore, for each agent in the list 244there is a phone number 244 b, an email address 244 c, a web chatcontact 244 d and an SMS 244 e. In addition, some of the agents haveskills 244 f assigned to them, which are used when skills-based routingis enabled, which is described in greater detail below.

In some implementations, the content provider, i.e., the cellularservice provider in the present example, configures the names andcontact information of the agents in the list 244. The agents may beemployees of the cellular service provider, or they may be associatedwith contractors hired by the cellular service provider to providesupport services. The agents may be located in the same location, e.g.,in an office associated with the cellular service provider, or they maybe located in different places, e.g., in different contact centers, asdescribed previously.

In some implementations, at the time that a customer communications isrouted to the page 2500, none of the agents in the list may be availableto connect to the customer. This may be the case, for example, when theagents are all on a break (e.g., lunch hour), or all the agents who areon duty are engaged in answering other customer communications. Tohandle such situations, the content provider may configure instructions246, which specifies the action to take when no agent is available. Forexample, the cellular service provider may specify that if agents arenot available, then the application should send the customercommunications to page 9000, titled “Assigned Agent Voicemail.” The page9000 may include instructions that to connect the customercommunications to an agent's voicemail, such that the customer may leavea message. Additionally or alternatively, the page 9000 may includeother instructions to connect the customer communications to other agentcontact points that are associated with the different communicationsmodes implemented by the interaction site (e.g., an e-mail address).

In some implementations, the default strategy on page 240 for connectingcustomer communications to agents may be that an incoming customercommunications is sent to the first available agent. In suchimplementations, the customer communications may be sent to an incomingcommunications queue, and available agents are included in an agentqueue. The first customer communications from the head of thecommunications queue may be connected to the first agent from the headof the agent queue.

The content provider may configure instructions 250, specifying that ifthe agent selected for a customer communications does not accept theconnection after a number of attempts, then the customer communicationsshould be connected to the next agent from the agent queue. The numberof attempts may be a configurable parameter that is specified by thecontent provider.

The content provider also may configure instructions 252 that specifyhow the interaction flow should proceed once the communications betweena customer and an agent is completed. For example, the cellular serviceprovider may specify that the interaction flow should proceed to thepage 10000, titled “Goodbye.” The page 10000 may include instructions toend call, with the application (e.g., the ARS 132) sending a greeting tothe customer. Additionally or alternatively, the page 10000 may includeinstructions for the application (e.g., the ARS 132) to query thecustomer to answer a survey regarding the recent communications session.

In some implementations, the content provider may specify a skills-basedrouting strategy. This may be enabled through the instructions 254,e.g., when the content provider selects the “Enable Skills BasedRouting” option. When the skills-based routing strategy is used, thecustomer communications are not connected to available agents using thedefault strategy described above. Instead, the application matchescustomer communications to the most suitable agents for handling thecommunications, based on one or more factors such as the subject matterof the customer communications, agent characteristics such as agentskills or agent scores, and past history of interactions between thecustomer and the agents, among others.

For example, when a customer communicates with the “Customer Support”interaction site, the contact handling platform 130 may determine thereason or subject matter for the call, or certain characteristics of thecustomer, or both, apart from computing the customer experience score.The contact handling platform may make the determinations by analyze thecustomer's interactions with the ARS 132, or the STAM 134, or both. If acellular subscriber calls in to the interaction site and says, whileinteracting with the ARS 132, that “My phone is not working,” then theSIAM 134 may determine, using speech recognition techniques, that thecustomer needs technical support. In another case, if the customer callsin and says “I want to upgrade my plan,” then the SIAM 134 may determinethat the customer is seeking sales support. In some implementations, theSTAM 134 may determine, using speech recognition techniques, that thecustomer has a non-native accent, or that the customer is elderly, orsome such characteristic. This information may be forwarded to the ARM136 for selecting the most suitable agent for the particular type ofcustomer communications, or for the specific customer, or both.

Upon receiving the information on the type of the communications, or thecharacteristics of the customer, or both, the ARM 136 may attempt tomatch the customer communications to the most suitable agent. In someimplementations, the ARM 136 may use the agent skills 244 f that areconfigured by the content provider. For example, the cellular serviceprovider may specify that agent “John Doe” has “tech support” skills,indicating that the particular agent has expertise in handling customercommunications for which the subject matter are related to technicalsupport issues. The cellular service provider also may specify thatagents “Jane Smith” and “Daisy Gasby” have “sales” skills, indicatingthat the particular agents have expertise in handling customercommunications for which the subject matter are related to sales.Accordingly, the ARM 136 may match the customer who needs technicalsupport to agent “John Doe,” and the customer who is seeking salessupport to the first available agent between “Jane Smith” and “DaisyGasby.” If the matched agent is not available to take the call, then theARM 136 attempts to connect to the next agent available with therequired skills.

The cellular service provider may specify other skills, such as “highexperience” and “low experience,” which indicate that the correspondingagents have high expertise and limited expertise, respectively, inhandling customer communications. Accordingly, when the ARM 136 tries tofind a match for a customer who is extremely dissatisfied (indicated,for example, by a very low customer experience score for the associatedcustomer communications), then the ARM 136 may try to find an agent whohas high expertise in dealing with customer communications (e.g., agent“Jane Smith”), but try to avoid an agent who has limited expertise indealing with customer communications (e.g., agent “Daisy Gasby”). Thismay be because an agent with low experience may get more easilyflustered when dealing with a unhappy or angry customer as compared toan agent who has high experience and may have handled many situationslike this before.

In some implementations, the contact handling platform 130 determinesthe satisfaction level of the customer, or the performance of the agent,or both, based on the interaction between the customer and the agentduring a communications session. In this manlier, the contact handlingplatform 130 may compute additional metrics that are used for matchingcustomers to agents.

In some implementations, one of the additional metrics may be a secondcustomer experience score, which is a measure of the customer's level ofsatisfaction in interacting with a human agent. In some implementations,the second customer experience score may be a numerical value, while inother implementations the second customer experience score may be one ofseveral levels, such as “high,” “medium,” or “low”. The second customerexperience score may be different from the customer experience scoredescribed previously with respect to the page 230. The latter iscomputed based on the customer's interaction with the ARS 132.

In some implementations, one of the additional metrics may be an agentscore, which is a measure of the performance of the agent in handlingcustomer communications. For a particular agent, the agent score may bean aggregate of the second customer experience scores computed for thecustomer communications handled by the agent. This may be the casebecause the second customer experience scores provide an indication ofhow well or poorly the agent can handle different types of customers andvarious types of communications situations. In some implementations, theagent score may be a numerical value, such as when the agent score iscomputed using numerical values for the second customer experiencescore. In other implementations, the second customer experience scoremay be one of several levels, such as “high,” “medium,” or “low,” forexample when the second customer experience scores are based on suchlevels.

Additionally, or alternatively, the agent score may be based on trackingthe agent's behavior during customer communications. For example, thesystem may measure how composed the agent remains in handling difficultcustomers or whether the agent gets easily flustered; how well the agentis able to calm an agitated customer; or how quickly the agent is ableto resolve the customer's issues.

To compute the additional metrics, the STAM 134 may perform speechrecognition on the customer's speech as he or she interacts with theagent at issue during a session, to determine the level of satisfactionof the customer in interacting with the agent. For example, if thecustomer utters keywords or phrases with a positive connotation, such as“Awesome,” “Thank you so much,” or “Thank you for helping,” then theSTAM 134 will interpret the customer's speech as indicating a high levelof satisfaction of the customer in interacting with the agent. Thisinformation may be passed to the ARM 136, which will accordingly measurethe second customer experience score as high. On the other hand, if thecustomer utters keywords or phrases with a negative connotation, such as“Terrible,” “This is a waste of time,” or “You are not helping,” thenthe STAM 134 will interpret the customer's speech as indicating a lowlevel of satisfaction of the customer in interacting with the agent. Insuch cases, the ARM 136 will give measure the second customer experiencescore as low.

Additionally or alternatively, in some implementations, the customer'ssatisfaction level may be computed using customer feedback after thecustomer-agent interaction is over. For example, the customer maycomplete a survey to indicate his or her satisfaction with the sessionand the particular interaction with the agent. This survey may beprocessed by the ARM 136 in determining the second customer experiencescore.

For each customer, the ARM 136 may store the second customer experiencescores for future use in matching the customer with agents, as describedin greater detail below. Additionally or alternatively, the ARM 136 mayuse the second customer experience score for each customercommunications to update the agent score for the agent that handled theparticular customer communications.

In some implementations, the agent skills 244 f configured by thecontent provider are mapped to the agent scores, or to specific keywordsdetected in the customer's input, or both. The mapping may be a defaultmapping provided by the contact handling platform 130, or it may beconfigured by the content provider. For example, the content providermay configure the skill “high experience” as mapping to an agent scoreabove 67 (on a scale of 1-100, when the agent scores are numericalvalues), or to a “high” level (when the agent scores are level-based);and the content provider may configure the skill “low experience” asmapping to an agent score below 33 (on a scale of 1-100, when the agentscores are numerical values), or to a “low” level (when the agent scoresare level-based). The content provider, i.e., the cellular serviceprovider, may configure the skill “sales” as being a direct match forcustomer communications associated with the customer's speech in whichone or more of the keywords or phrases such as “upgrade,” “plan,”“sales,” or “new phone” are detected. Similarly, the cellular serviceprovider may configure the skill “tech support” as being a hit forcustomer communications associated with the customer's speech in whichone or more of the keywords or phrases such as “phone not working,”“signal,” or “no connection” are detected.

In some implementations, the content provider may select one of severaloptions for matching customers to agents using the instructions 256. Theselected option may be used, for example, when skills-based routing isenabled. The content provider may select an option by clicking on theradio button next to the option. As shown, the options include “OrderEntered,” “Most Idle Agent,” “Hunt/Round Robin,” “Least Utilized Agent”and “Agent Scores.”

When the “Order Entered” option is selected, the customer communicationsis matched based on the order the agents are specified by the list 244.The contact handling platform identifies the first agent in the list244, e.g., “Jane Smith” and selects this agent for routing the customercommunications. If agent “Jane Smith” is not available (e.g., the agentis presently handling a customer communications or is away), then thecontact handling platform checks whether the next agent specified in thelist (e.g., “John Doe”) is available, and then the next, and so on.

When the “Most Idle Agent” option is selected, the customercommunications is matched to an agent who has not handled a customersession for the longest period, among all the available agents. In someimplementations, the contact handling platform may log the times whenagents interact with customers. In this manner, the system may haveknowledge of when was the last time an agent was engaged incommunications with a customer and, accordingly, may compute use thisknowledge to compute the idle times for the agents. The contact handlingplatform may arrange the available agents in an order of decreasing idletimes, and match an incoming customer communications to the first agentin the arrangement, i.e., the agent who has been idle for the longestperiod among the available agents.

When the “Hunt/Round Robin” option is selected, the customercommunications is matched to agents using a Round Robin schedulingscheme. In such cases, the contact handling platform schedules theagents as they become available (e.g., in a queue), and selects firstavailable agent from the schedule. If the first agent in the list is notavailable (e.g., the agent is presently handling a customercommunications or is away), then the contact handling platform checkswhether the next scheduled agent is available, and then the next, and soon.

When the “Least Utilized Agent” option is selected, the customercommunications is matched to an agent who has handled the least numberof customer sessions, among all the available agents. In someimplementations, the contact handling platform may track how manycustomer interactions have been handled by each agent. The contacthandling platform may arrange the available agents in an order ofincreasing number of customer interactions handled, and match anincoming customer communications to the first agent in the arrangement,i.e., the agent who has handled the least number of customer sessionsamong the available agents.

When the “Agent Scores” option is selected, the customer communicationsis matched to an agent based on the agent scores, which are computed asdescribed in the preceding sections. In some implementations, thecontact handling platform arranges the available agents in an orderbased on the agent scores, e.g., starting with the agent with thehighest agent score and ending with the agent with the lowest agentscore. The contact handling platform may match an incoming customercommunications to the first agent in the arrangement, i.e., the agentwho has highest score among the available agents.

In some implementations, the content provider may connect customercommunications to agents based on historical match, using theinstructions 258. Historical match may be used, for example, whenskills-based routing is enabled. The content provider may select thehistorical match option by clicking on the check box next to “EnableHistorical Match” 258.

When historical match is enabled, the contact handling platform looks atpast history of a customer's interaction with the different agents inselecting agents for connecting to the customer's present communicationssession. The contact handling platform may check the past history of thecustomer's interactions by examining the second customer experiencescores of the customer that are stored by the system, e.g., in the datastore 138. As described previously, the second customer experiencescores may be computed and stored by the ARM 136. In someimplementations, the second customer experience scores may be storedalong with the customer's contact point information (for the differentcommunications modes). This may be useful when the customer calls at alater point in time using one of the contact points corresponding towhich information have been stored. Then the associated second customerexperience scores may be retrieved from storage based on the contactpoint information that is obtained from the present communicationssession.

The customer's contact point information may include, for example, aphone number corresponding to the customer's voice communications deviceif the customer communications was made using voice communications mode,or using SMS where the message is sent from the customer's voicecommunications device. Alternatively or additionally, the contact pointinformation may be the customer's email address, if the customercommunications was partly or fully via email messages. The contact pointinformation also may be the customer's online account name (andpotentially other information such as contact email address, telephonenumber, postal mailing address or any suitable combination of these) ifthe customer communications was made via web chat through a web portalfor the interaction site.

In some implementations, the ARM 136 arranges the available agents in anorder based on the second customer experience scores for the particularcustomer for these agents that are retrieved from storage. For example,the ARM 136 may arrange the agents in an order of decreasing secondcustomer experience scores, e.g., starting with the agent correspondingto whom the customer has the highest second customer experience scoreand ending with the agent with the lowest corresponding to whom thecustomer has the highest second customer experience score. The contacthandling platform may match the associated present customercommunications to the first agent in the arrangement, i.e., the agentcorresponding to whom the customer's second experience score is highestamong the available agents. This matching may be based on the premisethat the customer is more likely to have a high satisfaction level bydealing with an agent with whom the customer has had a positiveexperience in the past, compared to an agent with whom the customer hada less positive, or negative, experience in the past.

In some implementations, the content provider may specify advancedoptions for agent selection when historical matching is enabled. FIG. 2Hshows instructions 260 and 262 that are configured by the contentprovider as advanced options for historical match. The content providermay configure the instructions 260 and 262 by selecting the “AdvancedOptions” tab 242 b in the page 240.

In some implementations, the content provider may use the advancedoptions to specify that an agent may be selected for the customercommunications only if the second customer experience score of thecustomer corresponding to that agent is greater than a certain threshold260 a, e.g., 67%, as shown by the instructions 260. In such a case, whenseeking agents based on the customer's corresponding second customerexperience scores, the ARM 136 will select only those agentscorresponding to whom the customer's second customer experience score isat least 67%.

In some implementations, the ARM 136 will route the customercommunications to the first available agent it determines who matchesthe criterion specified by instructions 260. In these cases, the ARM 136may not look for other available agents who also may fit the criterion.Therefore, the ARM may route the customer communications quickly, butpotentially at the cost of missing an agent who may be more suited tohandle the customer communications, e.g., an agent with a higher secondcustomer experience score than that of the selected agent (though boththese agents have second customer experience scores above the configuredthreshold 260 a).

In other implementations, the ARM 136 will arrange the agents in anorder of decreasing second customer experience scores, similar to thatdescribed previously. However, in these cases, the ARM 136 will includeonly those agents in the arrangement corresponding to whom thecustomer's second customer experience scores are greater than thethreshold 260 a. Then the ARM 136 may match the associated presentcustomer communications to the first agent in the arrangement, i.e., theagent corresponding to whom the customer's second customer experiencescore is highest among the available agents and the second customerexperience score is above the threshold 260 a configured in instructions260.

In some implementations, if the ARM 136 determines that no suitableagent is available for routing the customer communications based on theinstructions 260, then the ARM 136 will attempt to route thecommunications based on the instructions 262. In such an event, theinteraction flow will move to page 8000, titled “Explore Other RouteOptions.” In such implementations, the content provider may configurethe instructions in page 8000 to specify other strategies for routingthe customer communications, e.g., select agents based on historicalmatch even if the second customer experience scores are below thethreshold 260 a; select agents based on order entered, most idle agent,hunt/round robin, least utilized agent, and/or agent scores; and/or sendthe customer communications to voicemail.

In some other implementations, if the ARM 136 determines that nosuitable agent is available for routing the customer communicationsbased on the instructions 260, then the ARM 136 will attempt to routethe communications based on the instructions 256. This may be the case,for example, when instructions 262 are not configured, such that when noagents are selected due to the second customer experience scores beingless than the threshold 260 a, the routing strategy reverts to theoptions configured in page 240. In such implementations, the contentprovider may select one of the options from instructions 256, such asselect agents based on order entered, most idle agent, hunt/round robin,least utilized agent, or agent scores. The content provider also mayconfigure, e.g., using instructions 246, that if no agents areavailable, then send the customer communications to voicemail.

Although the above section describes that the ARM 136 performshistorical matching based on the instructions 258 and 260 using theagent-specific second customer experience scores, in someimplementations the ARM 136 may perform the historical matching usingaggregate customer experience scores. This may be the case, for example,when the contact handling platform 130 does not use separateagent-specific customer experience scores for the customer'sinteractions with the ARS 132 and the agents. Instead, the contacthandling platform 130 may compute an overall customer experience scorefor the customer that includes the customer's satisfaction level basedon interactions with the ARM, or with any agent, or with both.

In some implementations, the threshold 260 a may be pre-computed by thecontact handling platform 130. In other implementations, the thresholdmay be configured by the content provider. It is to be noted that thethreshold 260 a is distinct from the threshold 232 a. The threshold 232a is used by the ARM 136 to make the determination whether to route acustomer communications from the ARS 132 to a human agent. On the otherhand, the threshold 260 a is used by the ARM 136 to determine which ofthe available agents is suitable for connecting the customercommunications. Therefore, threshold 260 a is used by the ARM 136 onlyafter a determination is made using the threshold 232 a to route thecustomer communications to a human agent.

In some implementations, historical match may be used in conjunctionwith one of the options configured by the content provider using theinstructions 256. In such implementations, the ARM 136 may initiallyselect the agents based on past interactions between the customer andthe agents. If the content provider specifies advance options for thehistorical match using the instructions 260, then the ARM may shortlistonly those agents corresponding to whom the customer's second experiencescores are above the threshold 260 a. After agents are shortlist basedon past interactions between the customer and the agents, the ARM 136may use the agent selection option specified by the content providerusing instructions 256 to arrange the shortlisted agents in an order asdescribed previously, and then connect the customer communications to anagent suitably selected from the arrangement.

As an illustrative example, 10 agents may be active in the contactcenters 140 and 150 to handle customer communications for the “CustomerSupport” interaction site. Of these 10 agents, 6 agents have skill“sales,” i.e., they have the expertise to handle a customercommunications that is sales-related. Accordingly, the 6 agents areinitially shortlisted for handling the customer communications. Out ofthese shortlisted agents, 4 agents have had a positive experience withthe customer in the past. Accordingly, the customer's second experiencescores corresponding to these 4 agents is above the 67% thresholdconfigured using instructions 260. The customer's second experiencescores corresponding to the other 2 agents in the shortlist is below the67% threshold and consequently, these two agents are removed fromconsideration for handling the customer communications. Of the 4 agentsremaining in the shortlist, a single agent is selected to handle thecustomer communications in accordance with the instructions 256 (e.g.,the most idle agent of the 4 is selected, the least utilized agent ofthe 4 is selected, or the agent with the highest agent score of the 4 isselected).

In some implementations, when the ARM 136 selects an agent for handlinga customer communications, the information on the communications sessionis forwarded to the agent's contact point. The information may bedisplayed to the selected agent, for example, on a computer displaycoupled to the device used by the agent in answering customercommunications. FIG. 3 illustrates an example GUI 300 that is shown to ahuman agent when customer communications are routed to the agent. Theagent may be handling customer communications for an interaction sitehosted by the contact handling platform 130. The GUI 300 may bedisplayed by an application running on a computing device associatedwith the agent that is connected to the contact handling platform 130,and the application may be displaying information provided by thecontact handling platform 130. For example, the application displayingthe GUI 300 may be a client application that shows information providedby a server running on the contact handling platform 130, which managesinformation sent to various agents for the interaction site hosted bythe contact handling platform. In some implementations, the GUI 300 maybe shown on a web browser running on the agent's computing device.Accordingly, the following sections describe the GUI 300 with respect tothe communications system 100. As a specific example, the components ofthe GUI 300 are described as used by an agent answering customercommunications for the interaction site “Customer Support” that isassociated with the cellular service provider. However, in otherimplementations the GUI 300 may be associated with other interactionsites hosted by other platforms or systems.

As shown, the GUI 300 provides information associated with the voicecommunications mode, e.g., when the customer has called in using a voicecommunications device and therefore the agent is connected to the callusing the voice communications mode. In other implementations, the GUI300 may provide information for connections in other communicationsmodes, such as SMS, web chat, or email, e.g., when the customer connectsto the interaction site using one of these communications modes. In someimplementations, the GUI 300 may simultaneously provide information forcustomer communications made in all the different supportedcommunications modes.

In some implementations, the GUI 300 uses the panel 302 to provideinformation on the total number of calls 302 a for the interaction sitethat are to be handled by agents, the number of calls that are “On Call”302 c, i.e., connected to agents, and the number of calls that are“Waiting” 302 b, i.e., waiting in the call queue for agents to beavailable for connection. For example, as shown, there are total of twocalls, one of which is connected and the other of which is waiting inthe call queue. In some implementations, the number of on-duty agents inthe call center who are idle is indicated by 302 d. The idle agents arenot answering any calls currently, nor are they engaged in any otherkind of work. Therefore, new incoming calls can be routed to these idleagents.

The panel 304 provides information to the agent who is using the GUI 300about the current call that the agent is handling. Sub-panel 304 a showsthe number of the customer's voice communications device (e.g.,telephone number “2026266428” as shown), the status of the call (e.g.,“Talking,” i.e., the call is currently engaged), and the duration of thecall, i.e., how long the customer and the agent have been connected. Insome implementations, the status of the call may be determined by theSTAM 134 by analyzing the participants' speech.

Sub-panel 304 b provides miscellaneous bookkeeping information to theagent. For example, the sub-panel 304 b indicates the current date andtime 306 a, the name of the agent 306 b who is handling the callindicated by 304 a, and how long the call was waiting in the call queue306 c before the call was connected to the agent.

Sub-panel 304 c provides information about the customer that arerelevant to the call being handled. For example, the sub-panel 304 cincludes a field 306 d showing the customer experience score; a field306 e providing the number of topics or phrases that were detectedduring the customer's interaction with the ARS 132; a field 306 findicating a parameter “CallerEmotion,” which is a measure of thecustomer's emotional state; and a field 306 g showing the number of VUIerrors that the customer made while interacting with the ARS 132.

The information provided by the fields 306 d, 306 e, 306 f and 306 g aremeasured by the STAM 134 and the ARM 136 during the customer'sinteraction with the ARS 132, in a manner described previously. In someimplementations, CallerEmotion is a mapping of the customer experiencescore to a metric that may be more easy for the agent to understand, incomparison to the numerical value of the customer experience score. Forexample, the ARM 136 may map customer experience score above 67% toCallerEmotion “Happy” or “Satisfied,” customer experience score in therange 67%-33% to CallerEmotion “Unhappy” or “Dissatisfied” and customerexperience score below 33% to CallerEmotion “Angry.”

The information provided by 304 c may help the agent infer thecustomer's state of mind, so that the agent may be prepared to engagethe customer with a suitable degree of care. For example, as shown thesub-panel 304 c indicates that the customer with whom the agent ispresently interacting has an experience score that is 55% andaccordingly the customer is in an unhappy emotional state. Part of thereason for the low customer experience score may be that the customermade 2 VUI errors in interacting with the ARS 132. The customer alsospoke during interacting with the ARS 132, and the customer's speechincluded 4 topics or phrases that were detected by the STAM 134 asmatching keywords or phrases configured by the content provider.Presumably, correlating to the customer's emotional state, the topics orphrases detected in the customer's speech indicated the customer'sdissatisfaction or unhappiness during the interaction with the ARS 132.Knowing this information, the agent may strive to be more patient whileengaging the customer, or the agent may be conciliatory in an attempt tomollify the customer, or both. For example, the agent may start theinteraction with the customer with an apology, such as by saying “I seethat you were having a hard time,” or “Do not worry—I will take care ofyour issues,” or some other suitable comments.

The panel 308 provides a snapshot of all the agents who are currently onduty for answering calls from customers of the interaction site. Thetotal number of agents who are assigned for answering calls for theinteraction site is shown by the field 308 a; the number of agents whoare available to accept a call is shown by 308 b; the number of agentswho are “On call.” i.e., currently engaged in calls with customers, isshown by 308 c; the number of on-duty agents who are away (e.g., on abreak) is shown by 308 d; and the number of agents how are “CheckedOut,” i.e., currently off duty is indicated by 308 e. For example, asshown, there are total of two agents assigned to the particularinteraction site associated with the GUI 300. One of agents is connectedto a caller while the other agent, even though on duty, is away.Therefore, zero agents are available to accept incoming calls and zeroagents are off duty.

Panel 310 provides more detailed information about activities of theagents who are on duty. For example, sub-panel 310 a shows informationon one agent, such as the agent's name 312 a, the status of the agent312 b (e.g., the agent is “Talking,” i.e., engaged in a call), and howlong the agent has been in the current status 312 c. Sub-panel 304 a mayprovide other information to the agent. For example, 312 d indicates thedate and time at which the agent commenced the current call engagement.The number of the caller corresponding to the current call is indicatedby 312 e. The time of the agent's “Check-in,” i.e., the time the agentreported for duty, is shown by 312 f.

There may be other sub-panels present displaying information on otheragents who are on duty. For example, as shown, sub-panel 304 b providesinformation on the second agent who is currently on duty. The sub-panelprovides the agent's name, the status of the agent 312 b (e.g., theagent is “Away,” i.e., not engaged in a call and not available to acceptnew calls), and how long the agent has been in the current status.

The panel 314 shows information on the “Queue Performance” of the agentwho is using the GUI 300. That is, the panel 314 provides metricsindicating the agent's performance during the current work session ofthe agent. As shown by 314 a, the metrics can be viewed in differenttime interval granularities, such as 1 hour, 30 minutes or 15 minutes.The agent can select the desired time interval by clicking on thecorresponding link in 314 a.

The pie chart 314 b provides a graphical view of the status of thecustomer communications that have been handled by the agent in the timeinterval selected in 314 a. The same status is provided in textual formby the field 314 c. For example, as shown, in the last 30 minute timeinterval (that is selected in 314 a), the agent has successfullyanswered 2 calls, which is indicated by the “Answered” stripe in 314 c.No call has been abandoned, i.e., the caller has hung up withoutcompleting the transaction, the caller disconnected while waiting forthe agent to answer the call request, or the call got disconnected forsome other reason. This is indicated by the “Abandoned” stripe in 314 c.No call has been redirected, i.e., forwarded to a supervising agent whopresumably is better suited to handle the issues raised in the call.This is indicated by the “Redirected” stripe in 314 c. Therefore, asindicated by the “Total” stripe in 314 c, of a total of 2 calls handledby the agent in the last 30 minute time interval, both calls wereprocessed successfully.

The field 314 d displays statistics of the agent's performance, with314e indicating that the statistics are real-time statistics, i.e., thevalues are updated in real time as the agent interacts with thecustomers. For example, 314 d indicates that the agent's “Service Levelin 120 seconds” is 100%, i.e., in the last 120 seconds the agent wasfully engaged in communicating with customers. 314 d also indicates thatthe agent's “Average Speed of answer” is 4 seconds, i.e., the averagetime between a call request received by the agent and the call acceptedby the agent is 4 seconds. The “Average Speed of answer” provides ameasure of how quickly the agent answers call requests. Lower timesindicate better performance of the agent. In addition, 314 d indicatesthat the agent's “Average Wait Time before abandonment” is 0 seconds,i.e., no call handled by the agent was abandoned.

In this manner, as described in the preceding sections, a contentprovider may easily design an interaction site by using the GUI 200 thatis accessed using the application builder 170. While designing theinteraction site, the content provider specified instructions andparameters for measuring the satisfaction levels of customers when theyinteract with the site, and for routing the customer communications tolive agents if the satisfaction levels fall below thresholds specifiedby the content provider.

The interaction site is hosted by the contact handling platform 130 whoprocesses the customer communications and determines, upon processingthe content provider-configured instructions, whether to route thecommunications to agents, e.g., in the call centers 140, or 150, orboth. When the customer communications are routed to the agents, thecontact handling platform provides information on the customercommunications to the agents via the GUI 300 such that the agents areempowered to handle the customer communications with the suitable amountof care.

The systems and processes described in the preceding sections may allowa content provider to design a site that leads to increased customersatisfaction. For example, based on the routing strategies specified bythe instructions, customer communications may be handled by agents whena customer is having difficulty with the automated response system. Inaddition, the customer communications may be routed to the agent who ismost suitable for handling the particular situation, thereby leading toa satisfied customer.

The systems and processes also may lead to increased agent satisfaction.By ensuring that an agent is provided with information on a customer'ssatisfaction level, or emotional state, or both, agents can be ready toengage the customer with the right frame of mind.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 400implemented by a communications system for routing a customercommunications based on the customer's satisfaction level. The process400 may be used for routing customer communications corresponding to aninteraction site designed using the GUI 200 and hosted by the contacthandling platform 130. For example, the process 400 may be used forrouting customer communications made by subscribers of the “ExemplaryCellular” cellular service provider who call the company's “CustomerSupport” site. Accordingly, the following section describes the process400 as being performed by components of the system 100. However, theprocess 400 may be performed by other systems or system configurations.

In some implementations, the process 400 is implemented by the contacthandling platform 130 and more specifically, by the components of thecontact handling platform working in conjunction with one another, suchas the ARS 132, the SIAM 134, the ARM 136 and the data store 138. Thesemodules use the one or more processors included in the contact handlingplatform to execute the instructions configured by a content providerthat are stored in the data store (e.g. the instructions 139), therebyhosting the interaction site associated with the content provider, andprocessing customer communications to the interaction site, as describedby the process 400. In some implementations, the contact handlingplatform may simultaneously host multiple interaction sites that areassociated with the same content provider, or different contentproviders.

At 402, the contact handling platform receives a contact initiated by acustomer to a first contact point associated with the interaction site.For example, a cellular customer for “Exemplary Cellular” company maycall a customer service telephonic number (e.g., “1-800-123-4567”) thatis associated with the cellular company's “Customer Support” interactionsite. The call is received at the contact handling platform 130.Initially, the call is answered by the ARS 132, which determines thatthe call is intended for the “Customer Support” interaction site basedon identifying the telephonic number being called. Since thecommunications mode used is telephonic, the ARS 132 also may determinethat the customer's communications device (e.g., 110) is voice-enabled.

At 404, the subset of customer experience parameters configured bycontent provider associated with the first contact point are retrieved.For example, the cellular service provider may have configured theparameters 208 while designing the “Customer Support” site. Theparameters 208 may be a subset of the parameters that are available inthe system, e.g., provided by the contact handling platform 130. Thecellular service provider also may have generated some topics includingkeywords or phrases, or both, using the settings interface 210. Thecontact handling platform 130 retrieves them from the data store 138 andprocesses them while handling customer communications for the “CustomerSupport” interaction site.

Values for the subset of experience parameters for the contact aremeasured at 406 as the customer interacts with the automated responsesystem. For example, the contact handling platform 130 may track how thecellular subscriber interacts with the ARS 132 when the ARS answers thecall.

As part of measuring the experience parameters, the system may identifythe customer's inputs on the customer's communications device at 406 a.For example, the ARS 132 may track the cellular subscriber's inputs,such as button presses on the subscriber's communications device 110. Inthis manner, the ARS 132 may determine some of the parameters specifiedby the cellular service provider, such as whether the subscriber ismaking any VUI errors, whether the subscriber is not completing tasks,what is the “zero out” time, if any, among others.

In parallel, at 406 b the system may analyze the customer's speech usingthe speech/text analysis module. For example, the STAM 134 listenscontinuously in the background to determine whether the subscriberspeaks while interacting with the ARS 132. If speech is detected, theSIAM 134 analyzes the spoken words to look for matches to topics thatare configured by the cellular service provider, e.g., phrases thatindicate that the subscriber is dissatisfied, such as “I want to cancelmy service plan” or “Your service is terrible.”

At 408, the customer experience score is computed using measured valuesfor the subset of experience parameters. For example, detecting thephrase “I want to cancel my service plan” as spoken by the subscriberduring the interaction, the STAM 134 may pass this information to theARM 136. At the same time, the ARS 132 may detect that the subscriberdid not complete three tasks and made four VUI errors, and these dataare also forwarded to the ARM 136. Then the ARM 136 computes thesubscriber's customer experience score by subtracting, from the defaultcustomer experience score, the weights of the detected parameters asspecified by the cellular service provider using the settings interface206. Therefore, the customer experience score may be computed to be100%−10% (5%×2 for the four VUI errors)−30% (10%×3 for the three tasksnot completed)−5% (for the one phrase recognized in the subscriber'sspeech), which equals 55%.

In some implementations, the customer experience score is computed onlywhen the interaction flow reaches a “Check for Customer ExperienceScore” page 230, However, in other implementations, the customerexperience score is computed periodically (e.g., once every 30 seconds)or continuously throughout the whole interaction flow (i.e., the wholeinteraction site) or throughout a pre-designated portion of theinteraction flow (i.e., a pre-determined set of linked interaction pagesor a predetermined set of tasks).

In implementations where the customer experience score is computedperiodically or continuously, the content provider may configure thefrequency at which the computations are performed, e.g., using aninteraction site-level setting similar to the Customer Experiencesettings shown by the settings interface 206. The content provider mayaccess this setting to provide the instructions information 232 on page230 that identify the appropriate threshold to be used and that identifythe page titled “Route to Agent Page” that will be selected if the scorefalls below the threshold. The customer also may specify the frequencyof calculating the score (e.g., that the score should be calculated inintervals of every 30 seconds or that the score should be continuouslycalculated). In some implementations, the customer also may specify theset of pages or tasks in the interaction flow (e.g., pages 1000 through4000) during which the continuous or periodic computation of thecustomer experience score should occur.

In some implementations, the customer may specify different thresholdsand/or “Route to Agent” pages for different groupings of linked pages orfor different tasks. Notably, no such pages or tasks would have to bespecified if the content provider or platform provider configures theexperience score calculations to be instead continuously or periodicallyexecuted throughout any interaction with the interaction site,irrespective of where that interaction is in the interaction flow, and,moreover, configures the calculations to always route dissatisfiedcustomers using the same “Route to Agent” page.

At 410, it is decided whether the customer experience score is less thanor equal to the threshold configured by the content provider. Forexample, the ARM 136 compares the subscriber's customer experience scoreto the threshold 232 a configured by the cellular service provider usingthe interaction page 230.

If the customer experience score is not less than or equal to thethreshold configured by the content provider, then at 412 the systemcontinues to use the automated response system to interact with thecustomer during the contact. For example, if the customer experiencescore computed by the ARM 136 is greater than the threshold 232 a value,then the ARM 136 determines that the ARS 132 may continue to handle thecall and accordingly the interaction with the customer proceeds usingthe ARS 132.

On the other hand, if the customer experience score is less than orequal to the threshold configured by the content provider, then at 414the system routes the contact to a human agent at a contact center. Toillustrate, continuing with the above example, the ARM 136 determinesthat the computed customer experience score 55% is less than thethreshold 232 a value 60% configured by the cellular service provider.Consequently, the ARM 136 routes the subscriber's communications sessionto an agent at a contact center that handles customer communications forthe “Customer Support” interaction site. For example, the agents incontact center 140 may be employed by the Exemplary Cellular to handlethe company's customer contacts. Therefore, the ARM 136 may connect thesubscriber's call session to first agent available among the agents140_1, 140_2, or 140_N.

Optionally, in some implementations, the customer experience score isprovided to the human agent at the contact center, at 416. For example,the ARM 136 routes the subscriber's call to the agent 140_2 in thecontact center 140. The ARM 136 sends a call request to the agent 140_2,which shows up on the GUI 300 displayed to the agent 140_2 (e.g., in thefields 302 a and 302 b). When the agent answers the call request and thesubscriber is connected to the agent, the ARM 136 “whispers,” i.e.,silently displays, the subscriber's customer experience score to theagent, e.g., using the field 306 d in the GUI 300. In addition, the ARM136 may provide an indication of the subscriber's emotional state, e.g.,using the field 306 f, as described previously.

In some implementations, the process 400 may be used as the defaultrouting strategy for connecting customer communications to human agents.As described, the process 400 may connect a subscriber's customercommunications to the first agent available to take the call or mayconnect a subscriber's customer communications to an available agentusing, as the default routing strategy, any of the multiple differentrouting strategies mentioned previously, including routing to the mostidle agent, routing to the least utilized agent, and routing using around robin algorithm. The process 400 does not attempt to find the mostsuitable agent for handling the subscriber's session. However, in someimplementations, a routing strategy may match customer communications toagents most suitable for handling the communications.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating an example of a process 500implemented by a communications system for matching a customer to ahuman agent who is most suitable for handling the customer'scommunications. The process 500 may be used for routing customercommunications corresponding to an interaction site designed using theGUI 200 and hosted by the contact handling platform 130. For example,the process 500 may be used for routing customer communications made bysubscribers of the “Exemplary Cellular” cellular service provider whocall the company's “Customer Support” site. Accordingly, the followingsection describes the process 500 as being performed by components ofthe system 100. However, the process 500 may be performed by othersystems or system configurations.

In some implementations, the process 500 is implemented by the contacthandling platform 130 and more specifically, by the components of thecontact handling platform working in conjunction with one another, suchas the ARS 132, the STAM 134, the ARM 136 and the data store 138. Thesemodules use the one or more processors included in the contact handlingplatform to execute the instructions configured by a content providerthat are stored in the data store (e.g. the instructions 139), therebyhosting the interaction site associated with the content provider, andprocessing customer communications to the interaction site, as describedby the process 500. In some implementations, the contact handlingplatform may simultaneously host multiple interaction sites that areassociated with the same content provider, or different contentproviders.

At 502, the contact handling platform receives a contact initiated by acustomer to a first contact point associated with the interaction site.For example, a cellular customer for “Exemplary Cellular” company maycall a customer service telephone number (e.g., “1-800-123-4567”) thatis associated with the cellular company's “Customer Support” interactionsite. The call is received at the contact handling platform 130.Initially, the call is answered by the ARS 132, which determines thatthe call is intended for the “Customer Support” interaction site basedon identifying the telephonic number being called. Since thecommunications mode used is telephonic, the ARS 132 also may determinethat the customer's communications device (e.g., 110) is voice-enabled.

At 504, the first experience score for the customer is computed usingmeasured values for a subset of experience parameters configured by acontent provider associated with the first contact point. In someimplementations, the first experience score for the customer is thecustomer experience score that is based on the customer's interactionwith the ARS 132. For example, the contact handling platform 130 (inparticular, the ARM 136) may compute the subscriber's first experiencescore as described by the process 400 at 404, 406 and 408.

At 506, a determination is made whether the first experience score isless than or equal to a first threshold configured by the contentprovider. For example, the ARM 136 may compare the subscriber's firstexperience score to the threshold 232 a configured by the cellularservice provider using the interaction page 230.

If the first experience score is not less than or equal to the thresholdconfigured by the content provider, then at 508 the system continues touse the automated response system to interact with the customer duringthe contact. For example, if the customer experience score computed bythe ARM 136 is greater than the threshold 232 a value, then the ARM 136determines that the ARS 132 may continue to handle the call andaccordingly the interaction with the customer proceeds using the ARS132.

On the other hand, if the customer experience score is less than orequal to the threshold configured by the content provider, then, in someimplementations, at 510 the contact handling platform checks whether atopic has been indicated by the customer. For example, the SIAM 136listens continuously for words spoken by the subscriber as he or sheinteracts with the ARS 132. If customer speech is detected, the STAMchecks whether the subscriber utters one or more words that match topickeywords configured by the cellular service provider using the settingsinterface 210. For example, the STAM 134 checks whether the subscribersays “I need technical support,” which is matched by the STAM 134 to thesub-topic “Technical Support” 222 b under topic “Escalation” 222 a; orwhether the subscriber says “Your service is terrible,” which is matchedby the STAM 134 to the “Dissatisfaction” topic 222 a.

In some implementations, if it is determined that a topic has beenindicated by the customer, then at 512 the contact handling platformidentifies human agents who are best suited to handle contacts for thedetermined topic. For example, the SIAM 134 may recognize that thesubscriber said “I want to upgrade my plan,” which is determined by theSTAM as matching the sub-topic “Sales” 222 b. This information is passedto the ARM 136, which examines the list of agents 244 specified by thecellular service provider using the page 204. The ARM 136 determinesthat agents “Jane Smith” and “Daisy Gasby” have skills that match thedetermined topic, i.e., sales, and therefore identifies these two agentsas best suited to handle contacts for the topic “Sales.” Additionally oralternatively, the topic may be determined from the user interactionwith the ARS 132 during which the user made selections in response toprompts that identified the topic of interest to the user (e.g., theuser selected the button “2” on his or her telephone to indicate adesire for technical support in response to the prompt “If you wish totalk to our sales department, please press 1. If you need technicalsupport, please press 2.”)

On the other hand, if it is determined that a topic has not beenindicated by the customer, then, in some implementations, at 514 thecontact handling platform identifies human agents who are best suited tohandle generic contacts. For example, the STAM 134 may determine thatthe subscriber did not speak anything meaningful while interacting withthe ARS 132, or the STAM may not match the subscriber speech to anyconfigured topic 222 a or 222 b. This information is passed to the ARM136, which examines the list of agents 244 and determines that agent“Naya Roych” is best suited to handle the generic contact associatedwith the subscriber. In some implementations, the ARM 136 may determinethat all agents in the list 244 are suited to handle generic contacts,since such contacts do not need that the agents have any specificskills.

At 516, the system checks whether there has been past interactionbetween the customer and the identified human agents. For example, thecellular service provider may have configured instructions 258 on page240 to enable historical match. Accordingly, the ARM 136 may retrieve,from the data store 138, past interaction data that are associated withthe calling subscriber, who is identified by the contact handlingplatform from its records using the subscriber's calling number. Uponretrieving the past interaction data, the ARM 136 checks whether thedata includes information on customer communications that had beenhandled by any of the human agents identified at 512 or 514.

If past interaction between the customer and the identified human agentsis not found, then at 518 the customer communications is routed to ahuman agent based on additional content provider preferences. Forexample, the ARM 136 may determine that there is no data on pastinteractions between the calling subscriber and the identified agents.In such an event, in some implementations the ARM 136 may route the callto one of the identified agents using the default strategy, as describedpreviously by the process 400 at 414 and 416. In some otherimplementations, the cellular service provider may have enabledskills-based routing by configuring the instructions 254 on page 240. Insuch cases, the ARM 136 may select the most suitable agent from theidentified agents based on the option specified by the cellular serviceprovider using the instructions 256, in a manner as described previouslywith respect to the page 240.

After selecting the agent, the ARM 136 sends a connection request to theagent to connect the subscriber call at issue with the agent. At 528,the ARM checks whether the contact has been accepted by the agent, asdescribed in greater detail below.

On the other hand, if past interaction between the customer and theidentified human agents is found, then at 520 the ARM 136 obtains secondexperience scores corresponding to past contacts between the customerand the identified human agents. These second experience scores are thesecond customer experience scores that are computed based oninteractions between the customer and the human agents, as describedpreviously. For example, the ARM 136 obtains second customer experiencescores that were computed for the calling subscriber during his or herpast interactions with the “Customer Support” interaction site, based onthe analysis of the subscriber's inputs by the STAM 134.

At 521, second experience scores that are less than the a secondthreshold configured by the content provider are discarded. For example,in some implementations, the cellular service provider may enableadvance options for the historical match by configuring the instructions260 and 262 using the “Advanced Options” tab 242 b on interaction page230. In such implementations, the ARM 136 may compare the secondcustomer experience scores to the threshold 260 a, and remove theidentified agents corresponding to whom the subscriber's second customerexperience scores based on past interactions are less than the threshold260 a.

In such implementations, the content provider may configure the firstthreshold 232 a and the second threshold 260 such that the ARM 136discards agents corresponding to whom the subscriber's second customerexperience scores are less than the first experience score computed forthe present call. This may be achieved by setting the threshold 260 ahigher than the threshold 232 a, such that the agents who are remainingafter performing the comparison using the threshold 260 a correspondingto second experience scores that are higher than the subscriber'scurrent first experience score that is compared to the threshold 232 a.In such implementations, the first and second experience scores may benormalized to a common unit, such as a common spectrum of satisfactionthat can range, for example, from 0% indicating that the customer isextremely dissatisfied, to 100% indicating that the customer isextremely satisfied, with 50% indicating that the customer is mildlysatisfied.

In some implementations that use a common satisfaction spectrum toexpress the first experience scores and the second experience scores,which reflect the customer's satisfaction when interacting with the ASRand in conversing with an agent respectively, the content providerand/or the platform provider may select to have the pre-determinedthreshold 260 a to be the same as the first experience score thatresulted in the customer communications being routed to an agent. Forexample, if the first customer experience score for the customercommunications is computed to be 57%, which is less than the threshold60% set in 232 a and therefore the customer communications is routed toagents, the threshold 260 a may be configured such that it isdynamically set to 57%. Accordingly, the ARM 136 will discard agentscorresponding to whom the customer's second customer experience scoresfor past interactions were less than 57%.

The above filtering may be performed because the system has reached thisparticular point in the interaction flow only because the value of thesubscriber's first customer experience score indicates that thesubscriber is dissatisfied with the current interaction. Second customerexperience scores that are even less than the first customer experiencescore, which is already considered to be unsatisfactory for thesubscriber, indicates that the subscriber did not have a positiveexperience in the agent interactions associated with these low secondcustomer experience scores. Therefore, it is likely that thesubscriber's satisfaction level will not improve by routing thesubscriber's call to one of these agents; rather, the subscriber mayhave a more negative experience.

At 522, the system checks whether there are agents remaining. Forexample, in some cases no agent will remain in consideration for routingof the subscriber's call after the ARM 136 removes the identified agentscorresponding to whom the subscriber's second customer experience scoresare either less than the first customer experience score, or less thanthe threshold 260 a.

If it is determined that no agents are remaining, then the execution ofthe interaction flow moves to 518 and the customer communications isrouted to a human agent based on additional content providerpreferences. On the other hand, if it is determined that there areagents are remaining for consideration, then the system, i.e., the ARM136 selects, from the remaining agents, an agent who is most suitablefor handling the current customer communications. In someimplementations, this is performed based on one of the agent selectoptions specified by the content provider using the instructions 256 onpage 240. At 524, the ARM 136 arranges the agents in an order. Forexample, the cellular service provider may have selected the “Most IdleAgent” option in 256. Accordingly, the ARM 136 arranges the remainingagents, i.e., the agents corresponding to whom the subscriber's secondcustomer experience scores are either (a) above the subscriber's firstcustomer experience score for this call, or (b) above the threshold 260a configured by the cellular service provider, or both, in an orderstarting with the agent who has been idle for the longest time periodand ending with the agent who has been idle the shortest time.

At 526, the ARM 136 routes the contact to the first human agentidentified based on the arrangement of agents. For example, the ARM 136selects the first agent from the arrangement of agents described aboveas the agent who has been most idle i.e., who has not handledcommunications from subscribers of the cellular service provider for thelongest period of time among all the remaining agents. Then the ARM 136sends a call request to the agent for connecting the subscriber call atissue to the agent. For example, the ARM rings the agent's telephonenumber, or sends a graphical indication to the agent's GUI 300, or both.

At 528, the ARM 136 checks whether the contact has been accepted by theagent. For example, the ARM waits for 3 rings on the agent's telephone,based on the instructions 250 configured by the cellular serviceprovider.

If the contact is accepted by the agent, then at 530 the contact iscontinued with the agent. For example, if the agent answers theconnection request within 3 attempts, then the ARM 136 determines thatthe agent has accepted the connection request. In some implementations,the ARM 136 sends details on the call and the subscriber to the agent,which are shown to the agent using one or more of the panels 304 a, 304b and 304 c. The subscriber's call to the “Customer Support” interactionsite then proceeds with the subscriber interacting with a human agent.

On the other hand, if the contact is not accepted by the agent, then at532 the ARM 136 selects the next agent based on the arrangement oranother routing option. For example, if the selected agent does notanswer the connection request within 3 attempts, then the ARM 136determines that the agent is unavailable, e.g., the agent is busyinteracting with another customer or the agent is away. In such cases,the ARM 136 selects the second most idle agent from the arrangement ofagents ordered based on the “Most Idle Agent” option, and sends aconnection request to the newly-selected agent. If this agent also doesnot accept the contact, then the ARM selects the next agent from thearrangement, and so on, till there are no agents remaining.

If there are no agents remaining who meet the criteria of 520-526, thenthe ARM 136 selects another routing option. For example, the ARM 136 mayconnect the subscriber to the assigned agent's voicemail, based on theinstructions 246. Alternatively, if the cellular service provider hasconfigured advanced options for the historical match, then the ARM 136may explore other route options specified in page 8000, based on theinstructions 262.

FIG. 6 illustrate flow charts showing examples of processes 610, 620,630, 640 and 650 implemented by a communications system for selecting ahuman agent for routing user communications based on different agentselection options. The processes 610, 620, 630, 640 and 650 may be usedfor agent selection during routing customer communications correspondingto an interaction site designed using the GUI 200 and hosted by thecontact handling platform 130. For example, the processes 610, 620, 630,640 and 650 may be used for agent selection by the contact handlingplatform while implementing the process 500. When routing a new customercommunications using the process 500, the ARM 136 identifies agents whoare suitable for handling the customer communications as described at512, 514, 516, 520, 52I and 522. The contact handling platform arrangesthe agents in an order at 524, at which point the process selected from610, 620, 630, 640 and 650 may be used. Accordingly, the followingsection describes the processes 610, 620, 630, 640 and 650 as beingperformed by components of the system 100. However, the processes 610,620, 630, 640 and 650 may be performed by other systems or systemconfigurations.

The contact handling platform 130 uses the process 610 when the contentprovider has selected the option “Agent Scores” using instructions 256on page 240. At 612, the contact handling platform obtains agent scoresfor human agents in contact centers that are computed based on anaggregation of customer experience scores. As described previously, insome implementations, an agent score for an agent is a sum of the secondcustomer experience scores for all the customer communications handledby the agent. The ARM 136 updates the agent score for the agent afterevery customer communications for which the second customer experiencescore is computed. Subsequently, when arranging the identified agentsbased on their agent scores, the ARM 136 retrieves the correspondingagent scores, e.g., from the data store 138.

At 614, the agent scores are arranged in an order. For example, the ARM136 may arrange the agent scores in an order of decreasing scores,starting with the agent whose score is the highest and ending with theagent whose score is the lowest.

At 616, the first human agent is identified based on the highest scoreamong the ordered agent scores. For example, the ARM 136 selects thefirst agent who is at the top of the arrangement, i.e., the agent withthe highest agent score.

At 618, the contact is muted to the first human agent selected based onordered agent scores. For example, the ARM 136 sends a connectionrequest to the selected agent for connecting the customer communicationsat issue to the agent. The ARM also may send a graphical indication tothe agent's GUI 300.

The contact handling platform 130 uses the process 620 when the contentprovider has selected the option “Hunt/Round Robin” using instructions256 on page 240. At 622, the contact handling platform identifies thenext available agent based on a Round Robin algorithm. For example, theARM 136 schedules the agents as they become available (e.g., in aqueue), and selects first available agent from the schedule. If thefirst agent in the list is not available (e.g., the agent is presentlyhandling a customer communications or is away), then the ARM 136 checkswhether the next scheduled agent is available, and then the next, and soon.

At 624, the contact is routed to the identified agent. For example, uponidentifying the next available agent based on the order the agents arespecified by the list 244, the ARM 136 sends a connection request to theagent for connecting the customer communications at issue to the agent.The ARM also may send a graphical indication to the agent's GUI 300.

The contact handling platform 130 uses the process 630 when the contentprovider has selected the option “Order Entered” using instructions 256on page 240. At 632, the contact handling platform identifies theavailable agent who is first on the list 244 entered in the call queuepage 240. For example, the ARM selects an agent based on the order theagents are specified by the list 244. The ARM 136 identifies the firstagent in the list 244, e.g., “Jane Smith” and selects this agent forrouting the customer communications.

At 634, the contact is routed to the identified agent. For example, theARM 136 sends a connection request to agent “Jane Smith” for connectingthe customer communications at issue to the agent. The ARM also may senda graphical indication to the agent's GUI 300. If agent “Jane Smith” isnot available (e.g., the agent is presently handling a customercommunications or is away), then the ARM 136 checks whether the nextagent specified in the list (e.g., “John Doe”) is available, and thenthe next, and so on.

The contact handling platform 130 uses the process 640 when the contentprovider has selected the option “Most Idle Agent” using instructions256 on page 240. At 642, the contact handling platform identifies themost idle agent. In some implementations, the contact handling platformmay log the times when agents interact with customers. In this manner,the ARM 136 may have knowledge of the when was the last time an agentwas engaged in a customer communications and accordingly compute theidle times for the agents. The ARM 136 arranges the available agents inan order of decreasing idle times, such that the first agent in thearrangement is identified as the most idle agent, i.e., the agent whohas been idle for the longest period among the available agents.

At 644, the contact is routed to the identified agent. For example, uponidentifying the most idle agent, the ARM 136 sends a connection requestto the identified agent for connecting the customer communications atissue to the agent. The ARM also may send a graphical indication to theagent's GUI 300.

The contact handling platform 130 uses the process 650 when the contentprovider has selected the option “Least Utilized Agent” usinginstructions 256 on page 240. At 652, the contact handling platformidentifies the least utilized agent. For example, the contact handlingplatform may track how many customer interactions have been handled byeach agent. Using this knowledge, the ARM 136 may arrange the availableagents in an order of increasing number of customer interactionshandled, such that the first agent in the arrangement is identified asthe least utilized agent, i.e., the agent who has handled the leastnumber of customer sessions, among all the available agents.

At 654, the contact is routed to the identified agent. For example, uponidentifying the least utilized agent, the ARM 136 sends a connectionrequest to the identified agent for connecting the customercommunications at issue to the agent. The ARM also may send a graphicalindication to the agent's GUI 300.

The disclosed and other examples can be implemented as one or morecomputer program products, i.e., one or more modules of computer programinstructions encoded on a computer readable medium for execution by, orto control the operation of, data processing apparatus. Theimplementations can include single or distributed processing ofalgorithms. The computer readable medium can be a machine-readablestorage device, a machine-readable storage substrate, a memory device,or a combination of one or more them. The term “data processingapparatus” encompasses all apparatus, devices, and machines forprocessing data, including by way of example a programmable processor, acomputer, or multiple processors or computers. The apparatus caninclude, in addition to hardware, code that creates an executionenvironment for the computer program in question, e.g., code thatconstitutes processor firmware, a protocol stack, a database managementsystem, an operating system, or a combination of one or more of them.

A system may encompass all apparatus, devices, and machines forprocessing data, including by way of example a programmable processor, acomputer, or multiple processors or computers. A system can include, inaddition to hardware, code that creates an execution environment for thecomputer program in question, e.g., code that constitutes processorfirmware, a protocol stack, a database management system, an operatingsystem, or a combination of one or more of them.

A computer program (also known as a program, software, softwareapplication, script, or code) can be written in any form of programminglanguage, including compiled or interpreted languages, and it can bedeployed in any form, including as a standalone program or as a module,component, subroutine, or other unit suitable for use in a computingenvironment. A computer program does not necessarily correspond to afile in a file system. A program can be stored in a portion of a filethat holds other programs or data (e.g., one or more scripts stored in amarkup language document), in a single file dedicated to the program inquestion, or in multiple coordinated files (e.g., files that store oneor more modules, sub programs, or portions of code). A computer programcan be deployed for execution on one computer or on multiple computersthat are located at one site or distributed across multiple sites andinterconnected by a communications network.

The processes and logic flows described in this document can beperformed by one or more programmable processors executing one or morecomputer programs to perform functions by operating on input data andgenerating output. The processes and logic flows can also be performedby, and apparatus can also be implemented as, special purpose logiccircuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC(application specific integrated circuit).

Processors suitable for the execution of a computer program include, byway of example, both general and special purpose microprocessors, andany one or more processors of any kind of digital computer. Generally, aprocessor will receive instructions and data from a read only memory ora random access memory or both. The essential elements of a computer caninclude a processor for performing instructions and one or more memorydevices for storing instructions and data. Generally, a computer canalso include, or be operatively coupled to receive data from or transferdata to, or both, one or more mass storage devices for storing data,e.g., magnetic, magneto optical disks, or optical disks. However, acomputer need not have such devices. Computer readable media suitablefor storing computer program instructions and data can include all formsof nonvolatile memory, media and memory devices, including by way ofexample semiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, and flashmemory devices; magnetic disks, e.g., internal hard disks or removabledisks; magneto optical disks; and CD ROM and DVD-ROM disks. Theprocessor and the memory can be supplemented by, or incorporated in,special purpose logic circuitry.

While this document may describe many specifics, these should not beconstrued as limitations on the scope of an invention that is claimed orof what may be claimed, but rather as descriptions of features specificto particular embodiments. For example, a communications channel mayinclude the Web, where a user may interact with an interaction site viaa webpage generated dynamically according to the interaction flow. Asanother example, a communications channel may include a smart phoneapplication, where a user may interact with an interaction site bystarting a smart phone application, and the smart phone application thencontacts the interaction site and provides a communications interfacebetween the user and the interaction site. Certain features that aredescribed in this document in the context of separate embodiments canalso be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely,various features that are described in the context of a singleembodiment can also be implemented in multiple embodiments separately orin any suitable sub-combination. Moreover, although features may bedescribed above as acting in certain combinations and even initiallyclaimed as such, one or more features from a claimed combination in somecases can be excised from the combination, and the claimed combinationmay be directed to a sub-combination or a variation of asub-combination. Similarly, while operations are depicted in thedrawings in a particular order, this should not be understood asrequiring that such operations be performed in the particular ordershown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations beperformed, to achieve desirable results.

Only a few examples and implementations are disclosed. Variations,modifications, and enhancements to the described examples andimplementations and other implementations can be made based on what isdisclosed.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, at a call handling platform, a first call placed by a first caller to a first calling number; measuring, by the call handling platform, a first subset of data points based on an interaction of the first caller with an interactive voice response (IVR) module during the first call, wherein the IVR module is associated with the call handling platform; computing, by the call handling platform, an experience score for the first caller using measurements of the first subset of data points, wherein the experience score reflects a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the first caller in interacting with the IVR module during the first call; accessing a predetermined first threshold that indicates a minimum level of caller satisfaction; comparing the experience score to the first threshold; conditioned on determining, by the call handling platform and based on the comparing, that the experience score for the first caller indicates that the first caller has a lower level of satisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction, routing the first call to a first human agent at a first call center; and enabling, by the call handling platform, the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller prior to or during a handling of the first call by the first human agent.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: enabling a first customer of the call handling platform that is associated with the first calling number to select the first subset of data points from a group of data points available at the call handling platform; and enabling the first customer to configure values for the first subset of data points.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein enabling the first customer to configure the values for the first subset of data points comprises enabling the first customer to use an Internet-based browser user interface associated with the call handling platform to configure the values for the first subset of data points.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first subset of data points are selected from the group consisting of: a number of no inputs by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each no input corresponds to an instance of failure of the caller to respond to a query by the call handling platform, a number of no matches by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each no match corresponds to an instance of the caller providing a response to a query by the call handling platform that does not match a pre-determined response expected by the call handling platform, a number of tasks not completed by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each task not completed indicates an instance of the caller failing to complete successfully a task that has been requested by the call handling platform, a number of zero actions by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each zero action corresponds to an instance of the caller providing a preconfigured input indicating an attempt to connect to a human agent irrespective of a query by the call handling platform, a time to zero out by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein the time to zero out indicates how quickly the caller attempts to talk to a human agent after the call is connected, and a wait time of a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein the wait time of the caller indicates how long the caller has to wait before being connected to a human agent.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein measuring the first subset of data points comprises: analyzing, using a speech analysis module associated with the call handling platform, voice speech made by the first caller during the first call; and computing, by the call handling platform, the experience score for the first caller based on analysis of the voice speech made by the first caller, wherein the experience score for the first caller that is computed based on the analysis of the voice speech made by the first caller provides a numerical measure indicating an emotional state of the first caller during the first call.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein analyzing the voice speech made by the first caller during the first call comprises detecting, by the speech analysis module, one or more predetermined keywords in the voice speech made by the first caller, wherein the one or more predetermined keywords are configured by a first customer of the call handling platform that is associated with the first calling number.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein measuring the first subset of data points comprises at least one of: determining, by the call handling platform, demographic information associated with the first caller, and accessing, by the call handling platform, historical data corresponding to an industry associated with the first calling number; and wherein computing the experience score for the first caller comprises computing the experience score for the first caller using at least one of the demographic information and the historical data.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising enabling a first customer of the call handling platform that is associated with the first calling number to set a numerical value as the first threshold.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein enabling the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller comprises displaying the representation of the experience score for the first caller to the first human agent on a display screen coupled to a computing device associated with the first human agent.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein enabling the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller comprises speaking, by the call handling platform, the representation of the experience score for the first caller to the first human agent while routing the first call to the first human agent.
 11. The method of claim 1, comprising: receiving, at the call handling platform, a second call placed by a second caller to a second calling number, the second calling number and the first calling number being different numbers; measuring, by the call handling platform, a second subset of data points based on an interaction of the second caller with the IVR module during the second call; computing, by the call handling platform, an experience score for the second caller using measurements of the second subset data points, wherein the experience score for the second caller reflects a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the second caller in interacting with the IVR module during the second call; accessing a predetermined second threshold that is different from the first threshold and that indicates a different minimum level of caller satisfaction; comparing the experience score for the second caller to the second threshold; conditioned on determining, by the call handling platform and based on the comparing, that the experience score for the second caller indicates that the second caller has a lower level of satisfaction than the different minimum level of satisfaction, routing the second call to a second human agent at a second call center; and enabling, by the call handling platform, the second human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the second caller prior to or during a handling of the second call by the second human agent.
 12. A method comprising: receiving, at a call handling platform, a first call placed by a first caller to a first calling number; measuring, by the call handling platform, a first subset of data points based on an interaction of the first caller with an interactive voice response (IVR) module during the first call, wherein the IVR module is associated with the call handling platform, and wherein the first subset of the data points with associated values are stored in a non-transitory data storage medium in association with the first calling number; computing, by the call handling platform, an experience score for the first caller using measurements of the first subset of data points, wherein the experience score provides a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the first caller in interacting with the IVR module during the first call; accessing a predetermined first threshold that indicates a minimum level of caller satisfaction; comparing the experience score of the first caller to the first threshold; conditioned on determining, by the call handling platform and based on the comparing, that the experience score for the first caller indicates that the first caller has a lower level of satisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction, routing the first call to a first human agent at a first call center, along with providing the experience score of the first caller to the first human agent; receiving, at the call handling platform, a second call placed by a second caller to a second calling number, wherein the second calling number and the first calling number are different numbers; measuring, by the call handling platform, a second subset of data points based on an interaction of the second caller with the IVR module during the second call; computing, by the call handling platform, an experience score for the second caller using measurements of the second subset data points, wherein the experience score for the second caller provides a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the second caller in interacting with the IVR module during the second call, and wherein the second subset of the data points with associated values are stored in the non-transitory data storage medium in association with the second calling number; accessing a predetermined second threshold that is different from the first threshold and that indicates a minimum level of caller satisfaction; comparing the experience score of the second caller to the second threshold; and conditioned on determining, by the call handling platform, that the experience score for the second caller is below a predetermined second threshold, routing the second call to a second human agent at a second call center, along with providing, by the call handling platform, the experience score for the second caller to the second human agent.
 13. A system comprising: a call handling platform that includes a first processor and first instructions stored in a machine-readable medium that, when executed by the first processor, are configured to cause the first processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, at the call handling platform, a first call placed by a first caller to a first calling number; measuring, by the call handling platform, a first subset of data points based on an interaction of the first caller with an interactive voice response (IVR) module during the first call, wherein the IVR module is associated with the call handling platform; computing, by the call handling platform, an experience score for the first caller using measurements of the first subset of data points, wherein the experience score reflects a numerical measure of a level of satisfaction of the first caller in interacting with the IVR module during the first call; accessing a predetermined first threshold that indicates a minimum level of caller satisfaction; comparing the experience score of the first caller to the first threshold; conditioned on determining, by the call handling platform and based on the comparing, that the experience score for the first caller indicates that the first caller has a lower level of satisfaction than the minimum level of satisfaction, routing the first call to a first human agent at a first call center; and enabling, by the call handling platform, the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller prior to or during a handling of the first call by the first human agent.
 14. The system of claim 13, wherein the first instructions are configured to cause the first processor to perform operations further comprising: enabling a first customer of the call handling platform that is associated with the first calling number to select the first subset of data points from a group of data points available at the call handling platform, and enabling the first customer to configure values for the first subset of data points.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein enabling the first customer to configure the values for the first subset of data points comprises enabling the first customer to use an Internet-based browser user interface associated with the call handling platform to configure the values for the first subset of data points.
 16. The system of claim 13, further comprising: the IVR module including second instructions stored in a machine-readable storage medium that, when executed by a second processor, are configured to cause the second processor to perform operations comprising: measuring, using the IVR module, the first subset of data points, wherein the first subset of data points are selected from the group consisting of: a number of no inputs by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each no input corresponds to an instance of failure of the caller to respond to a query by the call handling platform, a number of no matches by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each no match corresponds to an instance of the caller providing a response to a query by the call handling platform that does not match a pre-determined response expected by the call handling platform, a number of tasks not completed by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each task not completed indicates an instance of the caller failing to complete successfully a task that has been requested by the call handling platform, a number of zero actions by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein each zero action corresponds to an instance of the caller providing a preconfigured input indicating an attempt to connect to a human agent irrespective of a query by the call handling platform, a time to zero out by a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein the time to zero out indicates how quickly the caller attempts to talk to a human agent after the call is connected, and a wait time of a caller placing a call to the call handling platform, wherein the wait time of the caller indicates how long the caller has to wait before being connected to a human agent.
 17. The system of claim 13, wherein measuring the first subset of data points comprises: analyzing, using a speech analysis module associated with the call handling platform, voice speech made by the first caller during the first call; and computing, by the call handling platform, the experience score for the first caller based on analysis of the voice speech made by the first caller, wherein the experience score for the first caller that is computed based on the analysis of the voice speech made by the first caller provides a numerical measure indicating an emotional state of the first caller during the first call.
 18. The system of claim 13, wherein the first instructions are configured to cause the first processor to perform operations further comprising: enabling a first customer of the call handling platform that is associated with the first calling number to set a numerical value as the first threshold.
 19. The system of claim 13, wherein enabling the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller comprises displaying the representation of the experience score for the first caller to the first human agent on a display screen coupled to a computing device associated with the first human agent.
 20. The system of claim 13, wherein enabling the first human agent to perceive a representation of the experience score for the first caller comprises speaking, by the call handling platform, the representation of the experience score for the first caller to the first human agent while routing the first call to the first human agent. 